... anecdote: Jesus was on the cross and below St. Patrick was praying for his soul, as soon his Master would die. Jesus called down to St. Patrick, 'Patrick, come up here. There is something I must tell you.' Patrick, not looking up, replied 'Lord, to be sure oi cannot for oi am praying fer yer soul, that oi am.' Jesus then calls - a little louder, with a hint of urgency. 'Patrick, for Christ's sake stop...

... 'Yes'. He says yes to his own death, accepts it, welcomes it, because this is the will of his God - 'Then let it be so.' He relaxes into it. You are not relaxed even in life, and he relaxes into death too. That was the last test, and he passed through it victoriously. Death is the only criterion, the only touchstone, where a man is really known - what he is, of what mettle he is made. It is very easy...

... that bed, Si' said Aunt Rose sharply. 'You know he knows you are there!' When death comes, then one forgets everything. For years they have been praying 'Lord, we are ready whenever you are ready.' And now that the Lord is ready, Aunt Rose is not ready to go. I have heard an old Sufi parable. An old man was coming from the forest - he was a woodcutter. He was carrying a big load of wood. and he was...

... really old - seventy, eighty, tired of life. And many times he used to say to the sky 'Where is death? Why don't you come to me? I have nothing left to live for here, I am just dragging! Do you want me to commit suicide? That will be a sin. Why can't you come easily?' Again and again he would pray 'Death, come and take me, I am finished.' And, in fact, there was nothing to live for. He was an old man...

... and had nobody to look after him, no money left. Every day he would have to go to the forest, cut wood and sell it, and somehow manage for his bread and butter. But that day it happened that death was passing by. Suddenly he asked - he threw down his load of wood - and shouted to the sky 'Death! Where are you? You come to everybody. I have seen so many people dying. Why are you so angry with me? Why...

... don't you come to me? Come on! I am ready!' And, by chance, death was passing by, so death came. It appeared before him and said 'Okay, sc, what do you want?' And he started trembling. He said 'Nothing much, it's just that I am an old man and I am unable to take this load onto my head, and there is nobody else to support me. Please, just help me to put this load on my head. Thank you!' And for years...

... he had been praying for death. In fact, he was not praying for death; he was not aware of what he was doing. Jesus is fully aware, and yet for a moment he wavers. So what to say of other people? For a moment he wavers on the cross, and he says to God 'Why have you forsaken me? Why? What wrong have I committed? Why are you so far away? Why is this being done to me?' For a single moment he wavers...

... be done' - that is the death of Jesus, death of any sense of self... Jesus ceased at that moment; he became Christ. This is the real resurrection. The other thing may be just a parable - meaningful, but not historical; a myth - pregnant with great significance but not factual. But this is the real fact. Just a moment before he was wavering, afraid, trembling, and a moment later he settled and...

... the last was left. Millions of people are not aware, even at that late stage; they simply go on throwing. They live and die. and they don't ever come to know the daily bread, the diamond that descends in you everyday. It is your energy. You can put it into anger, it is the same energy. You can put it into love, it is the same energy. It is your choice. That's why Jesus says: Resist not evil...

... inside him but he came out and said, "You are a strange man." I said, "I am a strange man? You are a strange man! First I saved you; you were angry. Then I helped you by throwing you back in; you were angry again, and started crying out for help." He said, "Yes, when I get into water I become afraid of death, but really I want to commit suicide." I said, "Then you...

... you are carrying - and you want to be unburdened; you have to be thankful to the person - the question of saving does not arise. But after Christianity it became an almost universal phenomenon. After Christianity came Mohammedanism, and of course they went to the very logical end: either you have to be ready to be saved or be ready to die. They don't give you any other choice, because they believe...

... Mohammed himself was not a Mohammedan when he was born. Was he a kaffir, a sinner? And can you tell me who converted Mohammed to Islam? He was never converted. Just as Jesus remained a Jew, Mohammed remained a pagan all his life; Mohammedanism is something that started after his death. So if Mohammed, a kaffir, can become the messenger of God, can't I discuss the message?" Burhanuddin said, "...

... death makes no difference. In fact, now you will have to understand what I have been telling you for sixty years: don't remain in any illusion that just because you are serving me and you are being with me devotedly - it is very difficult to find such a devotion - still that is not going to save you." You have to go through a transformation. And that only you can do. It is such an inner work that...

... they preferred either to be killed, burned, or to leave the country. So a very strange thing happened: Buddhism was born in India, Buddha was born in India, and yet in India there are no Buddhists. And there was a time when the whole of India was afire with Buddhism. Either they had to die... but not a single Buddhist is known to have been converted, it is impossible. If you have understood something...

..., "We won't accept you." But he was not going to take any no from them. He closed himself in his room and his family all tried to persuade him to open the door. He said, "I am not going to open the door. I am going to die in this room unless you go and persuade that family. Either I have to marry their daughter or I am going to die." Now the family said, "How can we persuade...

...; I said, "I will arrange it - just come out with me. Here it will be difficult: even if you take the poison you are not going to die immediately. Your father is a doctor; the door can be broken down and you can be saved from the poison. It is not such a great thing. I found out from your father that that poison can kill, but it will take at least eighteen to twenty-fours hours for the man to...

... die. Meanwhile the poison can be got out or an antidote can be given. So you see, it is simply foolish. Just come with me; my car is waiting outside, just come with me." He came out and I took him home. I said, "The best place to die is by the marble rocks. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world." For two continuous miles the Narmada flows between two mountains of white...

... marble. On the full-moon night it is an absolute dreamland: you can't believe that things can be so beautiful. So I said to him, "This is good; although it is not full-moon night it is very close. In just two days time it will be full moon. If you can wait for two days, good; otherwise still it is good light. And you are going to die so what does it matter whether it is a full-moon night or a no...

... arrangement: I wonder whether you are my friend or my enemy." I said, "I am just your friend. You want to die - I am ready to help. If you want to live, I am ready to help. A friend is really known when a crucial moment comes, and this is such a moment. You are going to die - at least I can help you." I brought the car to the porch, and I said, "In the morning somebody may get up late...

... with that girl! I became a Bengali for her, and now I am going to commit suicide!" I said, "This is strange - you wasted my whole night and all the arrangements I have made. Don't change your mind - keep to your word." He said, "You are saying that! It is my life and you are preparing for my death." I said, "If you want I can leave you at your house, but remember, never...

...." I said, "I am still ready. You should not mention it to me because if you still want to, there is no problem." He said, "No, I don't mean it. I am simply saying that getting married and having children and a job - it is worse than death." I said, "If it is worse, I am still ready to help you." There are people who are living a life which is worse than death, but...

..., stuffed with many dead things. Your minds are nothing but your dead experience. A person who wants to move into the original mind alert, aware, has to learn how to unlearn, how to unlearn the experience, how to die to the past continuously, how not to cling to the past. One moment you have lived - finished - be finished with it. Let there be no continuity with it; become discontinuous. It no longer...

... are dying. It is very good; the world will be better if you die." The devil laughed, a very devilish laugh and he said, "You don't know; if I die, you will be nowhere. You will have to die with me. And now I am not quoting scripture, I am talking business. Without me where will you be, and your church, and your God?" Suddenly, the priest understood. He took the devil on his shoulders...

... neither?. - you will be either good or bad." The dichotomy, the dualism is very clear in the Western mind. It is analytical. The sutra says, "The yogi's karmas are neither pure nor impure because they come out of the original mind." Now, many things are implied here. You see somebody dying and immediately, in the Aristotelian mind, a problem arises: if God is good, why death; if God is...

... have been given a life sentence, or she might have been shot by the government, by the court, by the police. And nobody would have said that the government was wrong, because it is a sin to kill a child. But do you see the implications? Then Adolf Hitler killed millions of people. He had almost brought the world to the very verge of death. Nobody has been such a calamity ever before. All Genghis...

... nothingness. BECAUSE MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS RETAIN THE SAME FORM, THE RELATIONSHIP OF CAUSE AND EFFECT CONTINUES EVEN THOUGH SEPARATED BY CLASS, LOCALITY, AND TIME. And it goes on... your life changes: you die in this body, you enter into another womb, but the innermost form clings with you. Whatsoever you have done, desired, experienced, accumulated, that fur coat clings with you; you carry it with you...

.... The death, ordinary death, is only the death of the body; the mind continues. The real death, the ultimate death we call samadhi, is not only the death of the body; it is the death of the mind as such. Then there is no more birth, because then there is no seed left to come back to, no desire to be fulfilled. Nothing left, one simply disappears like a fragrance.... AND THERE IS NO BEGINNING TO THIS...

... and again. Nobody knows when e was born; nobody has bothered about it. In fact, the myth says hat he was born on the same day as the day he died, and he became enlightened also on the same day. My feeling is, we have forgotten his birthday and his death day; we remember only his enlightenment day. But only that is significant: that his birthday as also his death day, because that is the only...

... way is a very long way. To die in a religious war is a shortcut. Now many people, mad people, are following this lunatic. Yes, he is Khomeiniac. But this has been always so. These maniacs, these lunatics, fanatics, have dominated humanity. They go on promising you a beautiful future after death. It is a beautiful business, because nobody comes back to say whether it really happens or not. It is...

... the monasteries and you will find people who are silent, but their silence has the taste of death. Their silence is not the silence of a song, of a dance; their silence is not divine. In fact they have fallen rather than risen higher, soaring upwards. They have fallen so much, they have become just dead rocks. Their silence has not been a transformation, it has been a suicide. And because it has not...

.... One thing is similar, that both are not part of the world of duality, of the world where everything is divided into polar opposites: good and bad, night and day, love and hate, life and death, this world and that world, the sinner and the saint. The sinner is one who knows what is good and what is bad, but follows the bad. The saint is one who knows what is good and what is bad, but follows the good...

... afraid that it will be taken away by death or by circumstances, you have made absolutely eternal there. For example, in heaven nobody ever grows old - everybody remains young. Have you ever seen an old angel in any picture? They are all boyish-looking. In Hindu mythology the heavenly women never grow beyond the age of sixteen; that is a desire. In Hindu mythology the APSARAS, the heavenly women, don't...

... of a few days - then comes death and deliverance. And then you will live in God's presence for ever and ever, in eternal joy. Buddha never talks about the other world; he says this world and the other are both projections of our mind. One should get rid of both, one should turn inwards rather than looking outwards. This world is outside, that world is outside; both are exterior to you, and both are...

... woman's house, sat at the door and declared that he would fast unto death, unless she married him. A very nonviolent method: fasting unto death. You are not harming anybody. That's what Mahatma Gandhi was doing his whole life: fasting unto death. But is it nonviolence? It is violence, pure violence. Of course you are not destroying the other, you are destroying yourself; but the threat that "I will...

... destroy myself," is a threat of violence. And you leave the other absolutely undefended. The woman was very much perturbed, disturbed, what to do? If this man dies, she will feel guilty her whole life that she has been the cause of the death of a young man. The father was also very much disturbed. And newspapers were writing and praising the young man: how nonviolent he is, how Gandhian he is. The...

...;You go to an old prostitute I know, you tell her to come to your house, sit by the side of the young man, and let her declare that 'I am fasting unto death unless this young man marries me.'" And that very night the young man escaped and was never seen again. Nonviolence in the hands of politicians is bound to become violent. It is only a beautiful name for an ugly phenomenon. This is not...

... Hindus expect of you. If you are a Mohammedan, you will follow certain other conduct which has been forced upon you. Ayatollah Khomeini, whose real name is Ayatollah Khomeiniac, goes on telling his followers: Be martyrs, we are martyrs - if you die fighting for religion, you will be born into paradise. JIHAD, religious war, is the surest and the most easily available way to reach to God; every other...

... Osho From Death to Deathlessness: Too much doing Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho From Death to Deathlessness   Next > Too much doing From: Osho Date: Fri, 9 September 1985 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: From Death to Deathlessness Chapter #: 35 Location: am in Rajneeshmandir Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A...

... started somewhere in 1915, and continued even after freedom came. The government changed; only one person - the writer, Pandit Sunderlal - remained, out of all the people who had been involved in some way in the case. I asked him - he was ninety - I asked him, "When is this case going to be finished?" He said, "Only when I die, because then there will be nobody left." The bureaucracy...

... called dictatorial. It is better to be dictatorial than have the whole country dying, starving, in hunger. You will be surprised, what man has done to man in hungry and starving situations. In Bengal when there was so much poverty and the rains had not come for three, four years, people sold their children - just for a few rupees. Mothers ate their own children! Hunger is such a thing... When death is...

... the message, "Should we say who we are?" I said, "There is no need to tell those idiots. It is enough that you know who you are." But underground or overground, the moment your heart opens towards me, I am with you wherever you are. Question 3: BELOVED OSHO, HOW CAN YOU BE SO CERTAIN THAT AFTER AN ENLIGHTENED DEATH ONE DOES NOT COME BACK, BUT WILL BE COMPLETELY DISSOLVED INTO THE...

... spreads and goes on spreading all over existence. And the unenlightened does not become a luminosity, but just a dark spot which moves from this body and enters into a womb. I have not said anything about it, because I don't want to give you anything that you have to accept as a belief. It is my experience, but to you it will remain a belief till you come to see the death of an enlightened man, and you...

... are alert and aware enough to see the luminosity that does not go to another womb but simply becomes the whole. Just wait; when I die you will have existential experiential proof of what I am saying. If you are in a hurry, I can die now. You have just to say. I can give you the proof, but then I cannot come back. So think it over, and tomorrow write the question again. If I receive your question...

... again, then tomorrow I die and you can see what happens here, just in my chair. As you become aware, you will become aware of many things which you cannot relate to others, because it is not their experience. I am not telling you everything that is my experience. Perhaps one day - because I am a man of the moment - I may decide one day to say everything, whether you can experience it now or later. But...

... because it has no challenge for your ego. Your ego lives on challenge. The more difficult a thing, the more your ego is nourished in doing it. Not doing anything, ego starves. And if you continue not doing anything the ego dies. Meditation is nothing but a preparation for the death of the ego. That's why meditation means doing nothing - just being. Difficult, hard, but not impossible. And once you have...

...From Death to Deathlessness...

...: N.A. Length: N.A. Discourse date: Fri, 14 August 1969 00:00:00 GMT This discourse was given to students. Just as an individual becomes old, the society also becomes old. Just as an individual dies, the society dies and civilizations also die, but no individual can refuse to become old or refuse to die. But a society, a civilization, can refuse to become old and to die if it so desires, although the...

... society which refuses to die will cease to have a new life. It is easy to refuse to die, but if a new life is not available a sort of dead life begins. The civilization of this country has long since ceased to have a new birth. We are as we have been for thousands of years. Even if there are a few changes, they have come from outside; changes have not happened from within ourselves. If we have...

... not done because of wastage of wheat; as long as we remain involved in the wrong remedies, right solutions cannot be found. If people believe that by tying an amulet diseases can be cured, medical science cannot be developed. The damage is not caused by the amulet as such - maybe one man may die or ten men may die - but the greatest damage will be the nondevelopment of medical science. Medical...

... ask for donations and help. When the famine is over, nobody bothers. The same situation continues, there will be no change. One eminent economist wrote a book called 1975. He has announced in that book that between Date: Fri, 1975 and 1980 00:00:00 GMT X-Location: there will be a great famine in this country, when ten to twenty crores of people may die. He has forecast a great famine in India the...

... possibility of your surviving ten years is small." The old man said, "My experience of ninety years tells me that I have survived ninety years though I could have died any day; I have deceived death for ninety years. Because I have not died so far, I can live still more. But may I ask what is your age?" Ramatirtha was very much embarrassed, because he was only thirty. He told him he was...

... thirty years old. Then the old man said, "My son, I would like to tell you why your country has become old. You are not doing anything in your country except awaiting death. You are bound to become old." I feel that if there is a God somewhere, he will be merciful to this old man who is so persevering. If there is no God we don't think of him; but if there is a God, he must be considering...

... we will again become slaves. We are not worried. If we fall sick we accept it; if we become poor it is okay; if there is famine and we die it is okay; if there are floods it is okay. Whatsoever comes we accept. Are we human beings, or have we become like machines that whatsoever happens we allow it to happen and go on just looking at it? Have we got no challenges in life, have we no intention of...

... of all thinking. Do not believe any such talk. We have been believing in the talks of such people since lifetimes. Search within yourselves now. Make a firm decision in life: If I have no thought of my own, my life is uselessly spent. Before death at least I should have some thinking about myself, so that when I am brought before God I should be able to say that I had thought like this or that; I...

... courage, his devotion to truth, his way of life. You cannot change that. "... You can kill me. And about death I am not worried at all, because there are only two alternatives. Either I will simply die, so there is no problem then. When I am not, what problem can there be? So either I simply die, then there is no problem, or I don't die and my soul goes on living. Then at least I will have the...

... there is no question." Socrates said, "It is not a question of surviving. What you are saying is certainly convenient, and any businessman would have chosen that. It is simple. Why unnecessarily get killed? Move to another town." Socrates said, "I'm not going out of Athens because it is a question of choosing between convenience or life, and I choose life - even if it brings death...

... satisfaction that I was not a coward, that I stuck to my truth, that you could kill me, but you could not bend me." He died joyously. The death scene of Socrates is something beautiful in the whole history of man. In Greece it was not a cross; it was poison that had to be given. So outside the man was preparing the poison, the official poisoner who gives the poison to people who are sentenced to death...

... and they said, "The master is asking why you are late." With tears in his eyes, he said, "He is really a dangerous man. I am trying to give him a little longer to live, but he is in a hurry." The poisoner asked Socrates, "Why are you in a hurry?" He said, "I am in a hurry because life I have lived tremendously, totally; I know it. Death is unknown; it is a great...

... adventure. I would like to taste death." Now, you cannot kill such a man. There is no way to kill such a man, who wants to taste death, who wants to know death, who wants to jump into the challenge and the adventure of the unknown. Living dangerously means whenever there are alternatives, beware: don't choose the convenient, the comfortable, the respectable, the socially acceptable, the honorable...

..., and I am going to do it." Then whatever happens is welcome. He will never regret. A real man never regrets, never repents, because he has never done anything against himself. The coward dies thousands of times before death, and continuously regrets, repents: it would have been better if he had done that, married that man, that woman, chosen that profession, gone to that college.... Thousands of...

... are vulnerable, it means you are ready to live in insecurity. Deep down it means you are ready even to die. You will not resist, you will not oppose, you will not stand in the way. If death comes, there will be no resistance. You will simply allow it to happen. You accept existence in its totality. Then how can you feel it as death? If you deny, then you can feel it as the enemy. If you don't deny...

... all, just pulling together anyhow, just waiting. With the ego it will always remain a waiting - and a hopeless waiting. You can do it fast, you can make haste, but you will never reach anywhere: just by hurrying you will dissipate energy and you will die. And you have done that so many times. You have always been in a hurry, and in that hurry dissipating energy, and then only death comes and nothing...

..., how can you feel it as the enemy? The enemy is created by your denial. The death cannot harm you, because the harm is your interpretation. Now no one can harm you; it has become impossible. This is the secret of Taoist teaching. Lao Tzu's basic teaching is this: if you accept, the whole existence is with you. It cannot be otherwise. If you deny, you create the enemy. The more you deny, the more you...

... negative. And if you think that something is negative, you cannot become open. The very fear of the negative will create the closure. You will be closed; you cannot open. The very fear that something can harm you... how can you become vulnerable? That's why I emphasize the fact that unless the fear of death disappears from you, you cannot become vulnerable, you cannot be open. You will remain closed in...

... very opening of yourself, all that is negative in existence disappears. Even death is not negative then. Nothing is negative. Your fear creates the negativity. Deep down you are afraid; because of that fear you create safety measures. Against those safety measures the enemy exists. Look at this fact - that you create the enemy. Existence is not inimical to you. How can it be? You belong to it, you...

... are just a part of it, an organic part. How can existence be inimical to you? You are existence. You are not separate; there is no gap between you and the existence. Whenever you feel that the negative, the death, the enemy, the hate, is there, and if you are open, unguarded, existence will destroy you, you feel that you have to defend yourself. And not only defend - because the best way to defend...

... are afraid. So don't ask such questions; don't bring false questions. If you have known openness, you cannot feel that something can be harmful to you. Now nothing is harmful. That's why I say even death is a blessing. Your approach has become different. Now wherever you look, you look with an open heart - that open heartedness changes the quality of everything. And you cannot feel that something is...

... else. You are hurrying for life, and only death comes and nothing else. But the mind, because it is accustomed to only one dimension, because it has known only one way - which is not even a way, but just appears to be a way - will say that if there is no ego, where is life? But I say to you, if there is ego, there is no possibility of life, only promises. The ego is a perfect promise-maker. It goes...

... flower, the meditation will happen to you. Then the worries will be over: your children will have gone to the college, and everything will have become established. Then there will be no responsibility on you. Then you will be able to seek the divine. Then, in the old age, the miracle is going to happen. And you will die unfulfilled. It is not going to happen, because it never happens in the hope, it...

... with a beautiful word: the "great journey." They are trying to hide the reality of death behind a curtain. Basically they are afraid of their own death. I have been, in my childhood, to many funerals - I loved going to the funeral processions. My father was worried; he said, "You don't understand that the man who has died was not our relative, was not our neighbor, was not even...

... acquainted with us - he was a stranger. And nobody has invited you to go to his funeral rather than going to school." I said, "I have learnt in funerals much more than I have learnt in my school." And many things became clear to me, even from my very childhood. People in a funeral procession never talk about death - never! I have never heard them talk about death. They talk about everything...

... else: about movies, about politics, about a thousand-and-one things except death, which they are carrying on their shoulders. And I was amazed - when the dead body is burning on the funeral pyre, people are sitting not facing it, but keeping their back towards it. And they become divided into small groups, because they have to be there for three, four hours, so that the body is burnt completely, and...

... in these three, four hours all kinds of gossip.... I used to move from one group to another. I was just looking for someone who was talking about death - but I have never found anyone. They are not sitting silently either, because silence is dangerous. They are keeping themselves engaged in talking about something or other. They are creating a barrier of words between themselves and the death that...

...; you go to almost all the funerals as if you don't have anything else to do." I said, "We all have to go one day - before that I want to learn about death as much as I can. And I am also learning about people's psychology: they are trembling inside, but laughing, joking, gossiping - just to avoid the consciousness that everybody's death is your death. Everybody's death is a signal that you...

... this is the number: you can reply to the horse." Zarathustra saying, "Watch your friends while they are asleep"... is not only about your friends, it is basically about you. And only an honest man, sincere to the core, can be the same while he is awake or he is asleep. If he is a joyous man, even in his death his face will show the same radiance, the same joy - what to say about sleep...

... another ... in her inner being there was a revolution happening. She was becoming aware that everybody dies, that death is the law of the outside world. "My husband has died, my child has died, tomorrow I am going to die. Every house is full of tears." And she understands why Buddha has made such an impossible condition - in order to turn her consciousness one hundred and eighty degrees. She...

..., it needs guts, because to come to these people, to be close to them, is almost a death. Of course there is a resurrection but who knows ...? When you are facing death you don't know there is going to be a resurrection. You will know only when you are ready to die; not only ready to die, when you really die - and suddenly you see a fresh new being arising in you. It is you and still it is not you...

... - after his death, in all those villages saints started springing up. Those small children were now becoming mature, young people. Hotei had not said anything to them, but he must have infected them in some way. He was contagious, and children are most impressionable. But it all depends, in that state; nobody can tell you to become a Hotei, and if you try to, it won't be the real thing. It has been...

... from one home to another asking for a few mustard seeds. They said, "A few mustard seeds? - we can bring bullock carts full, but they won't be of any use because the condition is impossible to fulfill. So many people have died in our family ... and you are not going to find a house where nobody has ever died. This is just impossible. Wherever life is, death has happened - they go together."...

... does not look at the child anymore. Just that morning she had come with the child, holding the dead body, with great hope. Buddha said, "But what about the child?" The woman said, "I am no longer concerned with anything. You have made it clear to me that death is a natural phenomenon. Now I want to know, is there something more, something deeper, greater? Something that never dies...