... one. When you face this I-NESS it will disappear. Fear can grip you at this moment, you can be scared. And it happens to many who move in such techniques deeply that they become so afraid that they run out of it. So remember this: when you feel and face your I-NESS you will be in the same situation as you will be when you die - the same. Because I is disappearing, and you feel death is occurring to...

... deepest point. If you can go into death you will become deathless, because one who goes into death cannot die. Then death is also just around; never in the center, just on the periphery. When I-NESS disappears you are just like death. The old is no more and the new has come into being. This consciousness which will come out is absolutely new, uncontaminated, young, virgin. The old is no more - and the...

... it is false? Try to understand this. The reality is one: the reality exists as a whole, as a totality. You cannot exist alone, or can you? If the trees are not existing you will not be able to exist, because they are producing oxygen for you. If the air disappears you will simply die, because that air is giving you vitality, life. If the sun goes out you will be no more here, because thew warmth...

.... They have come to you but they are not yours. No thought is yours - just dust gathered. Even if you cannot recognize the source from where this thought has come to you, no thought is yours. If you try hard, you can find from where this thought has come to you. Only the inner silence is yours. No one has given it to you. You were born with it, and you will die with it. Thoughts have been given to you...

.... Now you can laugh at the whole nonsense that you once thought that you could die for them, you could become a martyr for them. Now you are not ready to even give a single penny for them. They don't belong to you now. Now those clouds have gone but other clouds have come, and you are clinging to them. Clouds go on changing but your clinging never changes. That's the problem. And it is not that only...

... you. You will have a sinking sensation, you will feel you are sinking down and down. And if you get afraid, you will come out again and you will cling to thoughts because those thoughts will be helpful. Those clouds will be there: you can cling to them, and then the fear will leave you. Remember, this fear is very good, a very hopeful sign. It shows that now you are going deep - and death is the...

... must be ready to die. One of the exercises is this: whenever someone is dying, the master or the priest or someone who knows the bardo exercises will go on saying to him, 'Remember, be alert, you are leaving the body.' Because even when you have left the body it will take time to recognize that you are dead because the internal feeling remains the same; there is no change. The body is only to touch...

... only with its polar opposite. You can feel happiness only if you begin to feel unhappiness; you can begin to feel a healthy well-being only when you begin to feel illness; you cannot be aware of life unless you become afraid of death. Animals live, but they are not aware that they are alive because they are not aware of any death. Death is not a problem for them, so they pass through life, but they...

... are not alive in the same sense as man is. Man becomes alive, aware of his being alive, only because of death. With knowledge polarity comes into existence, and with polarity come problems. Then every moment is a conflict. Then every moment you are suspended as two. Then never again will you be one. You will be continuously divided, in conflict, in inner turmoil. So, really, that was a revolution...

... more life, you can be more blissful, but you will become aware of death. You will be more blissful, but in the same proportion you will have to suffer anguish. This is the problem, this is what man is - a deep anguish, a deep division between two polarities. You can feel life, but when death is there everything is poisoned. When death is there, every moment everything is poisoned. How can you be...

... alive when death is there? How can you feel blissful when suffering is there? And even if a moment of happiness comes to you, it is fleeting. And when the moment is there, even then you are aware that somewhere behind the unhappiness is there, misery is there, hiding. It will come up soon - sooner or later. So even a moment of happiness is poisoned by your consciousness that somewhere unhappiness is...

... hidden, is coming near. It is just by the corner, and you will have to meet it. Man becomes conscious of the future, conscious of the past, conscious of life, conscious of death. Kierkegaard has called this consciousness "anguish". You can fall back, but that is a temporary measure. Again you will come up. So the only possibility is to grow - to grow in knowledge to a point from where you can...

... has appeal. You are driving a car and you go on to more and more speed, and then the speed becomes dangerous. Then you cannot think; thoughts cease. Then you cannot dream. Then you cannot imagine. Then the present becomes solid. In that dangerous moment, when any instant death is possible, you are suddenly aware of a center in yourself. Danger has appeal only because in danger you sometimes feel...

... centered. Nietzsche somewhere says that war must continue because only in war is a Self sometimes felt - a center is felt - because war is danger. And when death becomes a reality, life becomes intense. When death is just near, life becomes intense and you are centered. But in any moment when you become aware of yourself. there is a centering. But if it is situational, then when the situation is over it...

..., meaningless, accidental. The awareness of all these things hurts him. He wants to improve things simply to feel some meaning in life, some joy in life. Ordinarily he is just a wound, and from birth onwards the wound goes on growing bigger and bigger, and the pain goes on increasing. If he looks ahead there is nothing but death and darkness. If he looks behind - before birth - nothing is known. He lives...

... between two unknown realities - birth and death. And the small span of his life is just a continuous pain. To avoid this pain, to change this situation, to heal the wound, he has done many things. He invented a God so that he can say he is not accidental, he is a creation of a perfect God. And when a perfect God creates, he creates perfect beings. It is simple logic: to make himself feel perfect...

... reason perfection smells of death. Whenever something is perfect there is no way to grow more. You have come to a full stop; now there is no future. Except death, nothing can happen to perfection. So I am not a perfectionist. I believe in open growth. You will come closer and closer to perfection, but you will never be perfect. Perfection is not the way of existence. Growth is the way. So perfection is...

... that life arises from the cosmos. Just as we are getting life from the cosmos, all the planets, all the stars are getting life from the cosmos. Do you know, every day dozens of great stars are born, and every day dozens of great stars die. Everything that is born and dies must have life in between birth and death; otherwise, what is birth and what is death? Unless life is in between birth and death...

... million poor people who are going to die in utter starvation, misery and suffering in the coming ten years. It is a good opportunity. I hope you will understand what I am saying. From tomorrow morning, start dissolving the armies, drowning all your armaments in the ocean, and hope for the best - that the intelligentsia around the world will follow. Nobody listens to words. Actions are needed to...

..., birth and death have no meaning. Perhaps he is going to have great difficulty convincing the scientists, but I give him my whole support on behalf of all the mystics - Sufis, Zen, all the buddhas. He should look to the East for his support and to the Eastern concept that everything is life in different shapes, in different forms, expressing itself in immense variety. And that variety makes existence...

... woman is called the earth and the man is called the sky. And certainly it balances. That proves its intelligence. Whenever there are one hundred girls born, one hundred and fifteen boys are born simultaneously. Strange, but fifteen boys die before the age of marriage, so by the time they are marriageable, the balance is there: one hundred girls, one hundred boys - an indication of the very life...

... was hoping that when President Ronald Reagan retired, the new president, George Bush, would prove more human. But the situation is just the opposite. He is now supporting, with three billion dollars, the creating of the greatest death gas, which will kill living people, living trees, living animals, and leave the houses intact, roads intact, cars intact, railway trains intact. Everything will remain...

... tell you the truth, now you cannot harm me at all. I hate your Kali, and I say to you: Death to your Kali and you! You are perpetuating a murderous creed! Are you a cannibal? That woman is holding a man's head, freshly-cut, and blood is dripping." He said, "But for two years continuously you were saying 'Jai Kali! Victory to Kali!'" I said, "I had to say it. I tried truth in many...

...!" This is a greeting in Zen. "You have robbed my heart" - the old robber. Meisetsu wrote: BUTTERFLIES FOLLOW LOVINGLY THE FLOWER-WREATH PLACED ON THE COFFIN. For butterflies there is no difference between death and life. BUTTERFLIES FOLLOW LOVINGLY THE FLOWER-WREATH PLACED ON THE COFFIN. This should be the attitude of a meditator: witnessing everything, birth and death, with the same...

... phenomenon, because many other things of the same category happened. Devadatta became very mad, he could not believe how the rock changed its course. Just one foot more and Buddha would have been crushed under it. Devadatta's father had a mad elephant who was always kept in chains. He was very dangerous. Criminals who had been sentenced to death were thrown near the cage of the mad elephant, and he...

... was not a criminal. Even a rock moved, changed its course. But Devadatta was much more unconscious than the elephant and the rock. He continued for Buddha's whole life to try to kill him. There is every suspicion ... Buddha died of food-poisoning but nothing is on record; there is every possibility that Devadatta's hand was behind his death. The food was given to him by somebody else, mixed with...

... your being. That is the only shelter in existence, because that center is beyond birth and death. It is your eternity, it is your cosmos, it is your buddha. As you go deeper and deeper you come closer and closer to yourself. A great silence starts descending on you, an immense peace, a great joy. As you come to the center of your being you have found your original face. Your original face is the...

..., because it takes you out of the circle of birth and death and gives you the wings to fly into the eternal sky. It brings you to your home, it makes you aware of the forgotten language of your being. It fills your heart with love, compassion, kindness. It creates a strange longing in you: How to share it? To make it clear, Nivedano ... (drumbeat) Relax .... But remember not to forget the witness. That is...

... do a thing, do it totally. That man continued to stare at me for some time, then said, I do no wish to commit suicide, I also want to live but I want to live on my conditions. If they are not accepted I will commit suicide. So he wants to live and also wants to live on his own conditions. If he lives, he lives as if dead, and when he dies, he will die a miserable death all the while wishing to live...

... food a man can give up love, or a mother can cut her child. During the Bengal famine many mothers sold their children. A husband can kill his wife, can sell her, and a wife can throw away her husband. At the time of death when the last moment comes to save oneself, the instinct for survival is very forceful because everything can be done again, but not the saving of one's life. A woman can find a...

... completely shattered. We cannot live in a normal way. A friend was brought before me recently. Those who brought him told me that this person has tried to commit suicide five times till now. I said, he seems to be a very wonderful man, it seems he is making incomplete efforts. It is difFicult to believe that a person is still living if he had tried to commit suicide five times. Where was the need to die...

..., to commit suicide, if you are living totally. This man has already tried to die five times. I told him, 'you should be ashamed of yourself, now don t make any more attempts. Five times is quite enough.' But what is the meaning of this - a person who tried to commit suicide five times and failed? Its meaning is that a portion of his personality must have been trying to save himself, and he must have...

... attempted to die also, otherwise who can stop another person from dying? How can there be honesty in living when it is not there in dying? When there is no honesty even in dying, there cannot be any honesty in living. Life will be a total dishonesty. Therefore, I told that person he should be ashamed of himself. He should have died at the very first attempt. And he was brought before me when he tried to...

... die for the sixth time. I told him not to try anymore, he would be much censured. He was very surprised as he had thought that I would persuade him not to commit suicide. He told me, 'What type of a man are you? Everyone whom I was taken to persuaded me and told me it was a very bad thing.' I said, I do not call it a bad thing, I say to do anything halfheartedly - incomplete - is bad. If you want to...

.... He who can not live fully, cannot die fully. He will be a shattered person. We all belong to this category. There is not much difference in all of us. We are doing the same thing. We do not love the person whom we say we love because in the morning we think of a divorce. Then again, we seek to be pardoned by him then, in the afternoon, we regret it. Thus we beg pardon in the evening and think of...

..., it was found difficult to fight against him because the watchman wielded his sword in an unbelievable totality, as it was a question of life and death for him. And the fight was a play for the knight. He thought he would cut the watchman's throat in no time, but for the watchman, it was a question of life and death. He became an altogether different watchman while wielding his sword. The knight...

... him, how he got that much energy, he replied that when death was certain, he should wield the sword totally before death. There was no escape from it. He at once became integrated for the first time in his life. He thought death was. in front of him and this was the last chance for him to do what he could do. He had neither the idea of the past nor of the future, nor of the wife, nor of his beloved...

... musician stopped playing. Mussolini declared that he had no idea that music would produce such an effect within him that he could not stop his head movements. He has said in his autobiography, 'My body was out of my control, I could not control my head, and I felt I would die now. The greater the effort on my part, the greater was the dashing of my head on the table.' Omkar Nath said it was nothing. It...

... little towards that side. Then he goes a little towards hell and again repents that he might miss heaven. Thus the whole life is wasted and he reaches nowhere. In the end the structure of the cart gets loosened and the bullocks die. Then again a new birth, a new world, a new life, and we begin the same course of life due to our old habits. So decide first where you wish to go, what you wish to be, what...

... after that acquirement that death cannot take away from him. But still it is a search all the same. Now he is out to seek a position from which he has not to climb down; he is after that fame that never dies. The search continues all the same, it is only that he has given a new name to his seeking - Ishwara (God). Keep this in mind: no one can make God an object of his desires. If he does, he will not...

.... Whenever their meditation deepens, the mind at once devises excuses and quickly comes out of meditation. It brings within you the fear of upsetting your normal arrangements and warns you against medita-tion. One person has written to me that he is going deeper into meditation but is afraid of going deeper still for he fears he might die! He wants me to take the responsibility in such a case. I asked him...

... whether death was not going to come to him without meditation. I told him that if he is certain that death will not come to him if he does not meditate, then I take the responsibility. But since death is bound to come even without meditation, whey does he throw the responsibility on me? Some others write and express their fears - "Is it possible that we might lose our sanity in meditation?"...

...!" No: Man is neither happy, nor peaceful nor blissful. There has been a lot of progress otherwise." From Lao Tzu's talks, it seems all progress will stop; but is man required for progress or progress required for man? If man is required for progress than it is alright that he be sacrificed at the altar of progress. If man dies, let him die but the slow moving 10 miles/hour vehicle must be...

... replaced with the a 100m/ hour vehicle. It does not matter if man lives or dies. The stars and the moon are to be conquered, no matter if the travellers live or die. If progress is the goal then Lao Tzu is wrong. But if man is the goal, his bliss, his savour is the aim, then what Lao Tzu says is 100 Remember, by running it does not mean that you have reached. By running alone one does not reach but the...

.... What is the ultimate test? We should compare our face with Lao Tzu's. Lao Tzu is not worried even at the time of death and we are filled with anxiety even when we are alive! Lao Tzu is happy to embrace death and we cannot even embrace life. Lao Tzu laughs in illness, we cry even when we are well. What is the proof? If Lao Tzu is offered thorns, he is filled with gratitude; if someone places a flower...

... say he says, "birth is pain, old age is affliction, life is sorrow, death is pain - everything is pain". But they did not take the trouble of gazing at his face. He is a pessimist, you are an optimist, so there should be signs of happiness on your face. But there is no sign of happiness evident on your face! This man who says "Birth is pain, life is agony, everything gives pain"...

... within and acceptance without: My friend dies. I say to myself, "That is how it is. I shall have to accept the fact. There is no other way." Then I keep telling myself that everyone has to go one day or the other. Death comes to everyone. Who has lived forever in this world? I try to console myself this way but the pain throbs within. The friend is gone, the emptiness troubles. The mind wails...

... within: "This should not have happened. It is bad. it is bad!" From without I console the mind: "Death happens. It has always been happening. We cannot escape it." These two things go on simultaneously. I try to dress the wound from with-out but it remains bleeding within. Lao Tzu does not advocate such acceptance, or Tathata. He says, "I am not pained at the death of my friend...

.... I only wonder how he remained alive all this time!" Life is an impossible happening. Death is a natural happening. Death is no wonder whereas Life is a wonder. Lao Tzu says: "How do we manage to remain alive so long?" I have mentioned Chuang-Tse to you. His wife died. The emperor went to condole him. He found him playing a tambourine on his door-step. His legs out-stretched, he was...

... creation. Or, to be more accurate, he is the creativity - the very force of creation. I always like to illustrate this point by the phenomenon of dance. A painter paints but the moment he has painted his picture, the painter is separate from the picture. Now the painter can die and the picture will remain. Or you can destroy the picture but by doing that the painter will not be destroyed - they are...

... Buddhists have a separate school of teaching just based on this word. Buddha has called that suchness, he has called it TATHATA; hence Buddha's name, Tathagata - the man who has achieved suchness, who has achieved That. This word suchness is very beautiful. What does it mean? If you are born, Buddha will say, "Such is the case that you are born." No other comment. If you die he will say, "...

...;Such is the case - you die!" No other comment, no reaction to it; things are such. Then everything becomes acceptable. If you say, "Things are such that now I have become old, ill; things are such that I am defeated; things are such that I am victorious; things are such..." then you don't claim anything, and you don't feel frustrated because you don't expect anything. Such is the...

... nature of things. Then one who is born will die, one who is healthy will become ill, one who is young will become old, one who is beautiful will become ugly. Such is the nature of things. Unnecessarily you get worried about it; this suchness is not going to change because of your worry. Unnecessarily you get involved in it; your involvement is not going to change anything. Things will go on moving in...

... and birth is followed by death - such is the nature of things!" So whatsoever is the case, if you can feel it is so and nothing else is possible, then that which is possible happens. It is always happening - that which is possible. And that which is impossible is never happening. And if you start asking for the impossible, you are trying to move against the nature of things. The philosophy of...

... fantasies. They think Buddha is not part of the nature of things. They think he must not die, that he must always remain young. So Ananda said to Buddha, "It is very depressing that now old age is settling upon you. We never imagined that you, one who has become awakened, one who has realized the ultimate, should become old." Buddha said, "Such is the nature of things. For everyone, whether...

... a buddha or non-buddha, enlightened or ignorant, the nature of things is the same - equal. I will become old and I will die, because whosoever is born will die. Such is the nature of things." Ananda is unhappy; Buddha is not. Ananda is unhappy because he is expecting something impossible, against the nature of things. When Shri Aurobindo died, the whole ashram of Shri Aurobindo was not ready...

... to accept the fact that Aurobindo could die. They couldn't believe it. The followers all over the world were surprised that Shri Aurobindo could die. For a few months this was the rumor - that he will resurrect again. And for a few days they tried to preserve the body. This was the rumor around the circle of his followers - that he is in deep samadhi, in deep meditation, and he has not died. But...

... attained now an eternal womb. That's why an enlightened person can live and can die in absolute relaxation. Now life or death makes no difference; he is part of eternity, he is part of the universal existence itself. So don't be worried when you come, in silence, close to the boundary line. In silence is the guarantee; in silence you cannot come to a boundary line from where one can fall. In silence you...

... out of it. He knows only that small space; that has been his world and he was absolutely happy with it. He is being thrown out of it into something unknown, unfamiliar. It feels almost like death. The child resists getting out of the womb; that resistance creates the pain for the mother. The child does not let go and allow himself to come out of the womb easily - he fights. That is the beginning of...

... you have so much light, you are light itself. Now you can take a journey into the underworld of unconsciousness, collective unconsciousness, cosmic unconsciousness. And wherever you will go the darkness will disappear. You will become one whole spectrum of seven stages - all full of light. This is what I call enlightenment. Now you cannot go mad. Now there is no fear for you; even death is not a...

... West more people go mad than in the East, more people commit suicide than in the East, more people are in anxiety and anguish than in the East. It should be just the opposite, because the West has everything and the East has nothing except poverty, starvation, disease, death. But even amongst disease, death, poverty, starvation, there seems to be a contentment, a relaxed state. The West has...

... everything but there seems to be such tension that thousands decide to die for the simple reason that at least they will get rid of all these tensions of life. And the most talented people, the geniuses, are more vulnerable. Almost every genius in the West has visited the insane asylum once in a while. And most of them have gone through psychoanalysis just to remain normal. Even to remain normal has become...

... was the best way for Socrates to die - because if he had died in another way his teaching would have died too. His teaching is far more important than his physical body. And that physical body was going to die any day; it was not going to last forever. Perhaps it was going to die exactly the same day without poisoning. But the poisoning made one thing clear to the whole world - that his teaching...

... case with your center is going to be reflected by your circumference. The whole world only reflects you, echoes you, resounds you. It is nothing but you multiplied a millionfold. So if you come across ugliness, it must be somewhere inside you. If you meet the enemy, you must have projected it. If you see death, that means something in you is rotten, something in you with which you have become...

... identified corresponds to death. The world is a mirror; it always shows your real face to you. Buddha insists again and again: Use the world as a mirror, and then go inside and find out the cause. The cause is always in the inner; the effect is in the outer. Don't be deceived by the effect. Don't start thinking that the effect is the cause because then you will be leading a life rooted in utter ignorance...

... of becoming light; they are choosing darkness. ... AND IN THE NEXT WORLD SUFFER FOR THEY OFFEND TRUTH. And whatsoever you do here and whatsoever you are here is going to be the cause, the continuity, in the next world too - because the next moment is born out of this moment and the next life is born out of this life. Life is a continuum. Death does not create any discontinuity; you remain...

... continuous. By death you simply change your house; you are the same person. You can come from the hut to the palace, from the palace to the hut. You can move from one city to another city, from one planet to another planet, from man to woman, from woman to man. You can go on changing your houses, but YOU, the real consciousness inside, the real self remains always the same. So if you are creating darkness...

... robe of the sannyasin. Buddha dropped it and chose instead the yellow robe for the simple reason that sannyas, the very idea of sannyas, had gone wrong, and he did not want to associate with it. And because he wanted to emphasize death and he wanted you to remember death again and again - because death can bring awareness to your life - he chose yellow. Yellow is the color of death: the color of the...

... yellow leaf, the color of the setting sun, the color of the dying man's face. Yellow is the color of death. Orange is the color of life, of youth, of love. Orange, in the East, is the color of spring, when all the trees bloom and birds sing and bees hum and there is fragrance all over. The whole climate is full of youth, freshness, rejuvenation. Buddha emphasized death to make you aware, but now twenty...

... between things and man, between animals and man, is that things remain the same; they cannot become wanderers. Animals also are born complete - they don't grow up, they only grow old. A deer is born a deer and will die a deer. There is no process between birth and death, no becoming. Man is the only being on the earth - and perhaps in the whole universe - who can become a process, a movement, a growing...

... - SEEING ABYSSES? COURAGE IS THE BEST DESTROYER: COURAGE ALSO DESTROYS PITY. PITY, HOWEVER, IS THE DEEPEST ABYSS: AS DEEPLY AS MAN LOOKS INTO LIFE, SO DEEPLY DOES HE LOOK ALSO INTO SUFFERING. COURAGE, HOWEVER, IS THE BEST DESTROYER, COURAGE THAT ATTACKS: IT DESTROYS EVEN DEATH, FOR IT SAYS: 'WAS THAT LIFE? WELL THEN! ONCE MORE!' BUT THERE IS A GREAT TRIUMPHANT SHOUT IN SUCH A SAYING. HE WHO HAS EARS TO...

... - as if man is complete. Man is a becoming. Man is the only animal who is not complete. And that is his glory, not his curse; it is his blessing. He can be born as a man, and he can die as a Zarathustra, or as a Gautam Buddha, or as a Jesus Christ - who have transcended humanity and reached to a new space you can call enlightenment, you can call awakening, you can call godliness, but something...

.... I will not accept any other destiny, because any other destiny will be nothing but death. I will accept the destiny only if wandering and mountain climbing are part of it, if my wandering continues and new mountains and higher mountains and farther-away stars are still available to me. IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, ONE EXPERIENCES ONLY ONESELF. As you go on searching for truth, searching for God...

... tathata, and because of this word, because he was using it continually... a disciple dies and he says, "It is perfectly okay, his time had come." Nobody dies untimely, although on every grave you will find written, "This poor fellow died untimely." Nobody dies untimely, everybody dies timely, exactly the way that he should die. Because of his use of the word tathata, "such is...

... your consolations are false. All your defenses are only imaginary. Are you not standing at an abyss each moment of your life? - because the next moment can be your death, and that is the greatest abyss. IS SEEING ITSELF NOT - SEEING ABYSSES? The more you are a seer, the more you see the abysses around you. The blind man can stand happily by the side of an abyss not knowing there is an abyss. Just one...

... DEEPEST ABYSS: AS DEEPLY AS MAN LOOKS INTO LIFE, SO DEEPLY DOES HE LOOK ALSO INTO SUFFERING. COURAGE, HOWEVER, IS THE BEST DESTROYER, COURAGE THAT ATTACKS: IT DESTROYS EVEN DEATH, FOR IT SAYS: 'WAS THAT LIFE? WELL THEN! ONCE MORE!' I am reminded of a small anecdote. In the Soviet Union, in the middle of the night, a KGB man knocks on a door and shouts, "Is Ginsberg inside?" Somebody opens the...

... living? Even in the middle of the night one cannot sleep peacefully - do you call this living?" If, at the time of death, death inquires of you, "Would you like to live your life - the same life that you have lived - one time more?" what do you think your answer is going to be? I don't think that any intelligent man would be ready to live this whole tragedy again - exactly the same wife...