... there?" All the hands were raised except one old man's. The minister couldn't believe it. Why has this old man not raised his hand? He should be the first, because he is just nearing death. Then he condemned and painted a picture of hell, with all its ugliness, torture, pain, suffering, fire. Again he challenged, "Now, who would like to go to the kingdom of God, to heaven?" All hands...

... danger you put aside all philosophy. Have you observed, whenever you are in danger you put aside your mind? You don't think at all, there is not enough time to think - the house is on fire, you jump! And when you are out, then you can sit under a tree and think again about what has happened. But in the moment when danger is there, when death is there, time is no more. You simply have to act, there is...

... butterflies, no flowers. Everything has become stony, dead, and everything is alien and foreign, inimical. Now from every shadow of every tree there is danger all around; he is afraid of death. From any corner, any moment, death will jump and kill him. Just a moment before everything was alive, friendly, a rapport was there between the child and the whole universe. Why? - because the hand of the father was...

... distinction. In this respect he is unique, but not in being. He himself says: YOU ARE THE SONS OF THE LIVING FATHER. And the second insistence is on 'the living father', because ordinarily a father is going to die. The physical part of the father will die, the biological part of the father will die, but the cosmic whole is always alive, it never dies - it is eternity. Just a few decades ago Nietzsche...

... declared, "God is dead!" That is impossible, because the universe cannot die, and God is not a person. If he were a person, he could die - persons have to die. God is not a form - forms have to die; God has no body - bodies have to die. God is all. In God we are born and we die. We take form and the form disappears, but the whole remains. The whole cannot die, the whole is life itself. So you...

...; Then begging becomes too painful. So he simply dropped the idea, he simply forgot, he became identified with the begging. After ten years, the father started feeling for the son. The son was not exactly right, his ways were different, but he was the only son. And now the father was getting old and any day he would die. And the son was his heir, he had to be brought back. So his vizier went in search...

... the kingdom. He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs, in trivia. His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end. All true seekers in fact, have been fighting against death. Bertrand Russell has made a statement that if there were no death, there would be no religion. There is some truth in...

... it. I will not agree totally, because religion is a vast continent. It is not only death, it is also the search for bliss, it is also the search for truth, it is also the search for the meaning of life; it is many more things. But certainly Bertrand Russell is right: if there were no death, very few, very rare people would be interested in religion. Death is the great incentive. Bodhidharma...

... renounced the kingdom saying to his father, "If you cannot save me from death, then please don't prevent me. Let me go in search of something that is beyond death." Those were beautiful days, particularly in the East. The father thought for a moment and he said, "I will not prevent you, because I cannot prevent your death. You go on your search with all my blessings. It is sad for me but...

... that is my problem; it is my attachment. I was hoping for you to be the successor, to be the emperor of the great Pallavas empire, but you have chosen something higher than that. I am your father so how can I prevent you? "And you have put in such a simple way a question which I had never expected. You say, 'If you can prevent my death then I will not leave the palace, but if you cannot prevent...

... my death, then please don't prevent me either.'" You can see Bodhidharma's caliber as a great intelligence. And the second thing that I would like you to remember is that although he was a follower of Gautam Buddha, in some instances he shows higher flights than Gautam Buddha himself. For example, Gautam Buddha was afraid to initiate a woman into his commune of sannyasins but Bodhidharma got...

... very integrating concept; without it you are cut away from existence and eternal life. Just like a branch cut off from a tree is bound to die -- it has lost the source of nourishment - the very idea that there is no soul inside you, no consciousness, cuts you away from existence. One starts shrinking, one starts feeling suffocated. But Confucius was a very great rationalist. These mystics, Lao Tzu...

... tomb, left one sandal there and put another sandal on his staff, and according to the plan, he left. He wanted to die in the eternal snows of the Himalayas. He wanted that there should be no tomb, no temple, no statue of him. He did not want to leave any footprints behind him to be worshiped; those who love him should enter into their own being -- "I am not going to be worshiped." And he...

... he cannot die. He will remain as he is. Only something on the periphery will disappear; the center remains, remains always as it is. Death is not for the center. The cyclone is only on the periphery, the cyclone never reaches the center. Nothing ever reaches the center. The perfect man is centered, he is rooted in his being. He is fearless. He is not unafraid -- no! He is not a brave man -- no! He...

... chair, glared at his mother and said, very meaningfully, 'Okay! I am SITTING, on the outside -- but on the inside I am standing.' From childhood to the final, ultimate day of your death, you go on asking for attention. When a person is dying the only idea that is in his mind, almost always, is, 'What will people say when I am dead? How many people will come to give me the last goodbye? What will be...

...-Tzu to? The outside is perfect but the source is still trembling. The action is perfect but the being is still shaking. The fear is there, death is there; he has not known himself yet. He is not a knower; whatsoever he is doing is just from the head and the hand: the third H is still not in it. Remember always to have all the three H's together -- the hand, the heart and the head. You have learned...

... heart; all maps exist for the conscious mind. It is a clear-cut thing; in it, you are secure. That's why love gives you fear, death gives you fear, meditation gives you fear. Whenever you are moving towards the center, fear grips you. THEY CLIMBED UP A MOUNTAIN. STANDING ON A ROCK THAT PROJECTED OVER A PRECIPICE TEN THOUSAND FEET HIGH, PO-HUN WU-JEN MOVED BACKWARDS -- not forwards; on this projecting...

... THEN MOTIONED LIEH-TZU TO COME FORWARD. That is where I am standing and calling you to come forward. LIEH-TZU FELL DOWN ON THE GROUND. He would not come near him. Wherever he was standing, far away from the projecting precipice, Lieh-Tzu fell down on the ground. The very idea of coming closer to this old madman who is just standing, overhanging death; any moment he will fall and will not be found...

... fallen there on the ground, dazed? Why this change in spirit? Why are you shaking so much? Why this trembling? What is the fear? -- because a perfect man has no fear!' Perfection is fearlessness... because a perfect man knows there is no death. Even if this old Po-Hun Wu-Jen falls, he knows he cannot really fall; even if the body shatters into millions of pieces and nobody can find it again, he knows...

... coward, nor is he brave. He simply knows that death is a myth, death is a lie -- the greatest lie; death does not exist. Remember, for a perfect man death does not exist -- only life, or God, exists. For you, God does not exist, only death exists. The moment you feel deathlessness you have felt the divine. The moment you feel deathlessness you have felt the very source of life. 'THE PERFECT MAN SOARS...

... I still insist that I am a peaceloving man.' Technique kills. It can give you a peace which belongs to death, not to life. Method is dangerous, because you may forget the source completely and you may become obsessed with the method. Methods are good if you remain alert and you remain conscious that they are not the end, they are only the means. Too much obsession with them is very harmful...

... bound to come - because you are clinging to a falsity. How long can you cling to it? Sooner or later you will have to see that it is false. You can go on avoiding, you can go on delaying and postponing, but not for ever. Death is the death of the ego. And ego is not in the first place. So a person who becomes free of ego also becomes free of death. Then there is nobody to die! It is like: a great wave...

... in the ocean believes that "I am, and I am separate from the ocean." This is ego. Soon the great wave will disappear in the ocean. Then it will feel death. And even while it is there, high in the sky, dancing the dance, whispering with the winds, having a dialogue with the sun, still the fear will be there, that sooner or later it is going to die. Because other waves are dying! And just a...

... don't simply go on wasting it. The sixth question: Question 6: WHAT IS THE EGO? IT IS A FALSE ENTITY. It is not. There are two great falsities in the world. One is ego and another is death. These two things exist not. And they are not separate, they are joined together. They are aspects of the same coin; two aspects of the same untruth. If you have ego, then you will be afraid of death, then death is...

... moment before they were alive. You are living amongst people who are dying, continuously somebody or other dies. THE BELL TOLLS FOR THEE. Don't send anybody to ask FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS - IT TOLLS FOR THEE. Whenever somebody dies, it brings home the truth that you are going to die. But WHY did somebody die? Why in the first place? Because the wave believed itself to be separate from the ocean. If the...

... wave knew that "I am not separate from the ocean," where is death? That wave becomes a Sufi. That wave becomes a Buddha. The wave who knows that "I am not separate from the ocean. I am the ocean. SO HUM - I am that;" then there is no death. Ego is a false entity. It is needed - just as your name is needed. Your name is a false entity. Everybody is born without any name. But we...

... everything. I have never repressed any desire. What more can tomorrow bring me? There is no promotion for me. "I have experienced the ultimate; now, nothing more can happen. So life or death, both have become the same. And one day anyway I will have to die. This is far better." Ninety-nine percent of people die on their beds. That is the most dangerous place - just looked at mathematically, a...

... simple calculation. Never sleep on the bed! Sleep on the ground. Ninety-nine percent of people have died on the bed - don't take the risk. But wherever you sleep, you will die - death is certain from the very moment one is born. And in fact, I am a nonserious man. I would love the drama - somebody killing me. So I will say to the pope and the cardinals, don't be worried. Give Jesus a good, beautiful...

... Osho From Death to Deathlessness: Judgement Day - a very stupid idea Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho From Death to Deathlessness   Next > Judgement Day - a very stupid idea From: Osho Date: Fri, 3 September 1985 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: From Death to Deathlessness Chapter #: 29 Location: am in Rajneeshmandir Archive Code: N.A...

... has looked and He has not been found." You can go to the farthest stars - one day man will go, but he will not find God. And you will not find anywhere heaven and hell; they have never been there. Religions have been playing upon your greed, your fear, your tremendous need for protection. Man is in a very precarious condition. All kinds of fear - and particularly the fear of death, sickness...

..., it does not mean anything. And with God disappear heaven and hell; and you start living a natural, beautiful, authentic, sincere life. No religion is needed. Medicine is needed if you are sick. The doctors will die from starvation if nobody falls sick. The doctor's profession is a very contradictory profession. He helps people to come out of sickness, knowing perfectly well he is destroying his own...

... comfortable a death. You will give him death, that much is certain, because either he can live or you can live - both cannot live together. You may be reading the Bible, but everything you have been doing is against the Bible! And he will not tolerate it. He is not a very peaceful man; he is very angry, arrogant, easily excited. He has done everything the last time he was here. He had thrown - when he was...

...From Death to Deathlessness...

... encountering death, one can bring one's total potential into manifestation. When there is no time left you cannot postpone. Hence the hurry. When death is very imminent, life flares up to the optimum. And that is what is happening to all creative people around the world, and more so around this commune, because my whole approach is such that only the very creative ones will be attracted to it. I teach...

... wrong things. Money is more important than meditation. This is a very topsy-turvy situation: man is standing on his head. Man is dying, and the death is very slow. And remember, when death is very fast you can avoid it, because you become intensely aware of it. When it comes very very slow, a slow poisoning.... For example, a person goes on smoking every day. All the experts go on saying that this is...

... dangerous to you, that this will kill you, but he smokes every day and it doesn't kill him! So you may write it on every packet of cigarettes -- nobody bothers about your warnings that "This is harmful to health," that "This is harmful to life." Who cares? -- because experience says something else! You smoke every day, dozens of cigarettes, and you don't die and you have not died yet...

.... Individuals have always died, it is not a problem. It is, in fact, part of recycling. Your body goes back to the sources to be renewed, your being moves back into the eternal to be rested, and then you come back again, fresh, young. Life tires, life exhausts, death is a rest. For the individual, death is a blessing -- but not for humanity itself; then it is a curse. Individuals go on dying and they go on...

... coming back. But humanity is needed for them to come back. This earth is a beautiful planet and it is in the wrong hands. Hence you are feeling that something is to be done very urgently. Yes, it is urgent, because death is coming closer. This century's end is going to see either the total destruction of humanity, and with it the total destruction of life on this earth, or a new man being born -- a new...

... man who will not hate life, as in the past it has been done; a new man who will love life; a new man who will not be negative in any way, but will be affirmative; a new man who will not desire life after death, but will live moment to moment in sheer joy -- who will think of this life as a gift and not as a punishment; who will not be antagonistic to the body, who will respect the body as the temple...

... change himself, transmute himself, or he has to die and vacate the earth. This is what is felt, this is why you are in such a hurry. That's why I am in such a hurry. My sannyasins can be the new man, my sannyasins can herald the new age. Hence my sannyasins are going to be opposed by all past-oriented people: by Hindus, by Christians, by Mohammedans, by Jainas, by Buddhists -- by almost everybody. They...

... are going to be opposed, and that is natural because we are trying to bring a new future in. To bring that new future we will have to destroy the past, because unless the past ceases to exist, the future cannot come into existence. The past has to die. We have to drop our clinging with the past. What does it mean when you say that "I am a Hindu"? It means you cling to a certain past...

... immortalized in this poem: The one who wanted to die heard LIVE. The one who wanted to live heard DIE. The one who wanted to take heard GIVE. The one who wanted to give heard KEEP. The one who was always alert heard SLEEP. The one who was always asleep heard WAKE. The one who wanted to leave heard STAY. The one who wanted to stay, DEPART. The one who never spoke heard PREACH. The one who always preached...

.... You are your death. You are the disease. When you are enjoying, dancing, loving, or just sitting doing nothing, you are simply happy for no reason at all. And happiness needs no reason. If you are looking for reasons, you will never be happy. Happiness needs no cause; it cannot be caused. You cannot make it part of the world of cause and effect. It is absolutely illogical. If you want to be happy...

...;Seventy years have passed. Death is already knocking on the door. When will you settle?" He said, "What can I do? How can you be happy without a perfect wife?" The friend asked, "But you have been searching so long, couldn't you find one?" He said, "Yes, once I did find one woman." Then the man said, "Then why didn't you marry her?" And the seventy-year-old...

... there is something in it. And immediately you will see: energy is no more dissipating. It is your attitude. Anything can be energy-giving and anything can be energy-destroying; it depends on the attitude. A religious person is one - that's my definition of a religious person - who is always overflowing whatsoever the situation. Even if death comes to him, death will find him in a deep orgasm...

.... Ordinarily, even life does not find you in deep orgasm, even love has not found you in deep orgasm. But a man like Socrates, even death finds him in orgasm - ready, receptive, dancing, as if death is bringing so many mysteries. It is bringing! That, too, is a face of God - maybe dark, but darkness is also divine. You are going to disappear, but disappearance is as mysterious as appearance. Birth and death...

... are two aspects of the same coin. Socrates is thrilled! You are not thrilled with life and he is thrilled with death. His disciples started crying and weeping, and he said, "Stop! You can do that when I am gone. Don't waste these moments. These moments are momentous. Let us receive death - it only comes once in life. It is a rare guest. It is not every day that it comes. And I am fortunate that...

... it is coming in a predictable way; otherwise it comes unpredicted and one cannot welcome it." He was going to be poisoned, he was sentenced to death by the Greeks. Six o'clock exactly and he will drink the poison - and he is waiting like a thrilled child. The disciples could not believe it! He took the poison and he started walking in the room, and somebody asked, "What are you doing...

...?" He said, "I am trying to be alert, to be awake, so death does not find me asleep." Then it became impossible to walk. The legs were giving way. So he laid himself down on the couch, and he started saying, "Now my feet are numb; it seems the feet are dead. But I am still as much as I was before. Nothing has been taken away from me - I remain whole!" And he was happy. And then...

... he said, "Both my legs are gone - but listen to me: I still remain the whole. That means only the body is being taken away. My consciousness remains untouched, unscratched. It seems death is not going to kill me." This is the attitude of a religious man... and it depends on your attitude. Your whole life can be an orgasmic flow. Not only love - each moment of your life can be an orgasmic...

... the tree in a subtle way. You touch the rock and there is contact; energy has been shared. You look into the eyes of another human being, and there has been a communication. You say something, or you remain silent, but the communion continues continuously. It is each moment happening. Now it depends on you whether you will make it a leakage. If it is a leakage, you will die a thousand deaths every...

... the father wants his children just to be obedient carbon copies. But Haridas found that the doors were closed - as they saw him entering, the doors were closed. And Gandhi said, "When I die...." In India it is the convention that after death the eldest son gives fire to the dead body on the funeral pyre. Haridas was the eldest son. Now you can see the vengeance - with all the nonsense...

... about non-violence, love, compassion - in actuality, the vengeance. And the vengeance was such that he was thinking even about after death: "When I die you have to be aware that Haridas should not be allowed to give fire to my dead body. I have disowned him, he is no longer my son." He never loved himself. He tortured himself as much as possible. But when people torture themselves in the...

... mountains, in the snow - and people were worshipping them. In fact, these people should have been treated; they were sick. And they will find any excuse. They will rationalize their sickness. For example, Gandhi went on a fast unto death. And what was the reason? The reason was that his secretary had fallen in love with a girl. Strange... if he has fallen in love, he will suffer - why are you suffering...

... will go on a fast unto death: "He really means it" - his own secretary! Now the secretary and the girl, who was an ashramite, were embarrassed. And everybody was on their heads: "You have put that old man in trouble." They said, "We have not done anything to him." And they were sitting by his side massaging his feet - "Somehow, forgive us. We will never do anything...

... he has to dismantle it and start from ABC again. Now at the age beyond sixty he feels afraid about whether he will be able to manage, or if death will intervene and he will be nowhere. Don't be worried. Even a single moment of freedom from conditioning - conditioning that you know intellectually is wrong - a single moment of freedom from it is enough; it is equal to eternity. So don't be worried...

... about death, that there is not much time. There is no need for time. It is only a question of insight, just seeing the point that your whole upbringing in the past has been wrong. Just to see it: it has been an imprisonment - and you will find yourself suddenly getting out of it. Who wants to live in a prison? My whole effort here is to bring you out of your prisons. You have given different names to...

... couples, but not a single couple was in a state of friendship. They were intimate enemies - living together, fighting together. They have decided to live together and to die together, but to continue harassing each other. We only change the superficial things. The Gandhian becomes a communist, there is no problem. The communist becomes a fascist, there is no problem. But to be with me is a problem...

... because I simply drag you out of your prison and leave you under the stars, in the open. You are accustomed to a roof - howsoever miserable, but a roof - and I leave you just under the stars, on the grass, with not even a mattress! And you are so accustomed to a bed.... Perhaps you don't know that ninety-nine percent of people die in bed! That is the most dangerous place in the world - avoid it! When...

... out into freedom is not possible, nobody can do it. You will have to walk on your own feet. And Maitreya now knows perfectly well that the past was wrong, it has not helped him. But still there is clinging. He understands me intellectually, but feels afraid - old age, death and lifelong ideology.... But he will have to risk. There is no way of going back. So the sooner you take the jump the better...

... meditation is absolutely silent. The level of the mind is full of dualistic thoughts. So as far as mind is concerned, yes is always connected with no. They are two sides of one coin. Love is connected with hate, just as day is connected with night or birth is connected with death. At the level of the mind, everything is connected with its opposite; you cannot have one without having the other too. This is...

..., his own style - to live, to die, to celebrate, to sing, to dance. He has come home. And nobody can come home with a crowd. Everybody can come home only alone. Question 4: BELOVED OSHO, MEDITATION, UNDERSTANDING, AWARENESS, LOVE AND ENLIGHTENMENT, AND NOW TRANSCENDENCE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, SEEM TO BE INALIENABLE PARTS OF YOUR TEACHING. AND THEY ALSO SEEM TO BE ORGANICALLY INTERCONNECTED. WOULD YOU...

.... Ramakrishna died, but before dying he told Sharda, "Remember, I have been here always and I will be here always, so don't think of yourself as a widow. Only my body is going to die - but you are married to me, not to my body." In India, when a husband dies - and particularly in Bengal it is more severe for the woman, for the wife - her head is shaved... because half of the beauty of a woman is in...

.... One day I will be coming." Ramakrishna died. Everybody tried to convince Sharda, "Don't be mad, don't go against the tradition. Ramakrishna was always half mad, and it seems that before death he has lost his mind completely!" But Sharda said, "I am not married to the tradition, not married to the convention - I am married to this beautiful half-madman and I am going to follow him...

... enlightenment. You are absolutely ripe, mature, to explode into the beyond, the unknowable, the ecstatic existence. You are old, but only in the body. Your heart is younger than the so-called young generation. You have not just grown old, you have grown up, you have matured. And I can say it without any hesitation: this is going to be your last life. You will not die without experiencing your immortality...

... experiences show the purity of her heart. She is not a woman of the mind. And her purity has been growing, and death cannot be so cruel. She is going to become enlightened any day... but certainly before her death. She should go on just as simply, as ordinarily, as humbly as she has been going up to now. She should not start thinking that she is going to become enlightened; otherwise the idea has entered...

..., and can distract. She should not bother about enlightenment or no-enlightenment. She is perfectly good as she is, and she should continue in her humbleness, in her love, in her purity, in her compassion. Enlightenment will come on its own accord. She is not to desire it, she is not to expect it. Question 3: BELOVED OSHO, TODAY'S QUESTION IS BEYOND BELIEF: HOW TO DIE UTTERLY WITHOUT GRIEF? I HAVE...

... moth comes towards it, dancing, and dies on its own accord... the candle does not do anything, but certainly it kills. The whole function of the master is to create such energy, such a magnetic force that you are pulled in and slowly, slowly start disappearing. And a point comes when you have become one with existence. This I call real death. The ordinary death that you see every day is not real...

... death; It is only a change of the house, or a changing of your clothes. The master is the real death - because once you are consumed in the energy that the master makes available to you, you will not be coming back into any form; you will disappear into the vast universe. It is death from one side: you will not be this small, imprisoned soul. It is life eternal from the other side: you will be freed...

... from the prison and you will become one with life itself. You will not be separate; you will be immortal, you will be universal. Just all your misery, all your limitations - the birth, the death, the old age - all these will disappear. You will be simply young, vibrating, eternal life. On the one hand the master is a death. On the other, he is the resurrection. Question 4: BELOVED OSHO, WHENEVER I...

... Jerusalem. Then he was crucified and there is the story of his resurrection. But again, where does he disappear to after he resurrects? Christianity has nothing to say about it. Where did he go? When did he die a natural death? Miguel Serrano, in his book The Serpent of Paradise, writes: "Nobody knows what he did or where he lived until he was thirty, the year he began his preaching. There is a...

... there out blood and water." This has led to the belief that Jesus was alive on the cross, because blood does not flow out of a dead body. But Jesus must die. Either the crucifixion is complete and he dies or the whole of Christianity dies. Christianity depends on the miracle of the resurrection; it had been prophesied that the coming Christ would be crucified and then resurrected. Jesus was...

... is Jesus. "On the wall of the building hangs an inscription and below it a translation from the Sharda into English which reads: YOUSA-ASAF (KHANYA, SRINAGAR)." Jesus was a totally enlightened being. This phenomenon of resurrection as far as Christian dogma is concerned seems inconceivable, but not for Yoga. Yoga believes - and there are ample proofs of it - that a person can totally die...

... ordinary things. They are concerned with the day-to-day problems of the ordinary man: bread, disease, death. Buddha says that the whole of life is a dream. So what does it matter if someone becomes alive again? It is meaningless. It only means that a particular dream has begun to have some reality again. There is one story recorded. Buddha was in a certain village where a child had died. The mother was...

... you will have to do one thing. Go to every house in the city and find out if there is any house where no one has ever died. If there is any house in the village where no one has ever died, then in the evening I will revive your child." The woman went and asked everyone. In every house, in every family, someone had died. By the time she returned in the evening she had become aware that death is...

... a reality, death is a part of life. Buddha asked her, "What do you say now? Is there any house, any family, any person who has not suffered due to someone's death?" The woman said, "I have not returned now so that my child can be revived. I have come to be initiated. Death is a reality. The child has gone, I will go, everyone will have to go. Initiate me into that life which never...

... ends." This is a greater miracle! But we cannot conceive of it. If the child had been brought back to life, it would have been a miracle. But this is a greater miracle, with deeper compassion. With a particular race it is possible; otherwise, it is not possible. The woman became a sannyasin: the death of the child was not used to satisfy the lust for life, it was used for renunciation. If...

.... Everything is finished. And because death is so near, he must now move within. No time can be lost, not a single moment can be lost. He must come to the end of his journey now, and before he is crucified he must complete the inner journey. All along he had been on an inner journey. But because he was also entangled with outer problems he could not move to that cool point, the moon point; he remained fiery...

... point. Now everything becomes silent; everything is as if dead. They thought he was dead, but he was not. He had simply come to the moon center where breathing stops: no outgoing breath, no ingoing breath - the gap. When one remains in the gap, there is such a deep balance that it is a virtual death. But it is not death. The crucifiers, the murderers of Jesus, thought that he was dead so they allowed...