Over the next three days I will speak with you a little about the search for life.
Before I begin tomorrow morning, it is essential to say at the outset: there is no reason to call what we take to be life by the name of life. And until this becomes clear—until it is well known in the presence of our own hearts that what we are taking as life is not life at all—the search for true life cannot even begin.
If someone mistakes darkness for light, there will be no search for light. And if someone mistakes death for life, he will remain deprived of life.
If what we have assumed is wrong, then the fruit of our entire life will also be wrong. Our understanding determines what our search will be.
The first thing I wish to submit is that life becomes available to very few.
Birth is available to all. Most people take birth itself to be life and fall into delusion. What we call life is only an opportunity to attain life—to attain it or to lose it. Through it, life can be realized, and through it, life can be lost.
What we call life is only an opportunity, a possibility. It is a seed—from which something may develop, or may not. The seed may lie waste; no sprout may emerge, no flower may bloom, no fruit may ripen. Both possibilities exist.
And as it has been so far, the life-seed of the many lies mostly wasted. Only in a very few do the sprouts appear, the flowers open, and the fragrance spreads. These few we revere and remember. But we fail to remember one crucial thing: that the very same seed has been given to us, and the very same fragrance can be ours.
Whoever looks at Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, and Christ and does not feel within the sting of insult—“The same seed is within me, and I too can attain the very life they attained”—for such a one all worship is futile, all show and hypocrisy—one thing.
To escape this sting, we have made Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira into gods—only to avoid the pain. If they are also human, then we must begin to repent our own humanity. If they are as human as we are, we have no place to hide, no excuse left. So to escape from humiliation, pain, sorrow, we have thrust upon them the notions of God, Son of God, tirthankara—what all foolishness have we not imposed!
They are human beings like us. They were human beings. But some human seeds develop rightly, and from within them the light of the divine begins to shine. Many seeds do not develop.
If religion has any relevance, it is this: that all seeds become what they are to become; that what lies hidden within them is brought to light. For this the very first fundamental is what I am saying to you today: until it dawns upon us that the direction in which we are heading and what we are doing is utterly wrong, no revolution, no transformation, no turning is possible.
What we commonly call life is little more than dying slowly day by day. And a long death cannot be called life. A man dies at seventy; the process of dying goes on for seventy years. Some die at a hundred, some at fifty. We sit quietly, thinking this prolonged dying is life.
Today you are one day less than you were yesterday. Tomorrow, again one day less. What you think of as increasing age is, in fact, decreasing life. The birthdays you celebrate are merely milestones bringing you closer to death. From every side we run, and in the end we find we have arrived at death. However we run, whatever we do, by a thousand devices and arrangements—we are only arranging to escape death. Someone gathers wealth, someone fame, someone position, someone power—every effort is a defense against tomorrow’s death, to create some security against it. But all arrangements break, and death arrives.
A small story comes to mind.
A king in Damascus saw a dream one night. He stood beneath a tree beside a horse when a dark shadow approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he was seized with fear. The shadow said, “I am Death. Be ready tomorrow, and be at the appointed place. I am coming to take you.” His sleep broke, the dream vanished. He was terrified. At dawn he summoned the greatest astrologers of his realm, the learned interpreters of dreams, and asked the meaning of this sign: “Last night a dark shadow placed a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I will come tomorrow to take you. I am Death. Be ready and be at the right place.’”
There was no time—only until tomorrow evening, when the sun would set and death would arrive.
The astrologers said, “There is little time to deliberate. If you have the swiftest horse, mount it and flee. The farther you can go, the better.”
What else could human intelligence suggest? To get as far as possible from the palace, from the capital—what other remedy is there? If one had asked you or me, what else would we advise? They advised rightly enough. Human reason does not run very far; it cannot see deeply. The simple idea is: run—escape death.
The king lacked no swift horses. The swiftest was brought. He mounted and fled. The horse was very fast, and slowly the king’s mind became reassured by the speed. It was natural to feel, “I will be saved, I will get away, far away.”
The capital fell far behind, the kingdom faded, towns and villages slipped away. The horse ran on. That day, the king did not stop; he neither ate nor drank. Who would stop to eat or drink when death is behind him? He did not halt the horse nor water it. That day only distance mattered.
By noon he had come very far. He was elated. Until noon he had been anxious; by afternoon he was humming songs. The thought arose, “Now I have come quite far.” By evening he had gone hundreds of miles. When the sun was setting, he tethered his horse in a mango grove and stood beneath a bush—at ease. He was about to thank God that he had come far enough when the same hand he had seen in the night fell upon his shoulder. He froze. Looking closely—there stood the same dark shadow. The shadow said, “I was very worried whether you would be able to come so far! Because this is the very place destined for your death. I wondered whether you could possibly traverse such a distance in time. But your horse was truly swift, and you rode well, and you have arrived at the exact time.”
However we run, this will happen one day. Whether you have dreamt it or not makes no difference. One day Death will meet you at the appointed place.
It may be that our directions of flight differ, our roads differ, our horses’ paces differ—that may be. But in the end there is little difference. Some day, beneath some bush, a hand will be laid upon your shoulder. Then you will find that what you were fleeing has met you. And you will panic. From that which you tried to escape, in truth you were running toward. There is no way to escape death.
Wherever we run, we run toward death. Running itself leads into death. Whoever runs will arrive in death.
It may be that the poor run slowly—no horse, running on foot. The rich run on great horses; kings on the swiftest. But in the end, those without horses arrive at the same place as those with them.
What is the way? What path? What shall we do?
First, what I want to say to you: whatever you are doing—all of it is taking you toward death. This is no startling revelation. All that has ever been done has led to death. A very few people have eluded death; and what they did, you are not doing at all. Across human history, only a handful have escaped death; and what they did, you are not doing at all. So whatever preparations you are making—they are preparations for death. Whether pleasant or unpleasant to hear, the fact and the truth are that all our preparations are preparations for death.
In these three days I would like to discuss with you: what are the signs of preparing for death, and how can one prepare for life?
Perhaps within you too there is a longing to know and attain life. In truth there is no human being without the longing to attain life. And yet some madness has gripped the whole of humanity—a great, deep insanity. A new child arrives and is initiated into it. Perhaps this even seems natural; if a child refuses initiation, we think him mad.
The day Mahavira leaves home, people call him mad. The day Buddha leaves his palace, he too is taken for mad. Christ as well is considered mad. When a whole humanity is mad, whenever a sane person is born he is taken to be mad.
Let me tell another small story; perhaps it will make my point clearer.
In a village one morning an old woman came and dropped something into the village well, saying that whoever drank from it would go mad. The village had only two wells—one for the villagers, and one in the king’s palace. By evening—out of sheer necessity—the entire village had gone mad; they had to drink. Only three abstained: the king, the queen, the vizier—those who had not drunk were spared and remained sane. By evening the whole village was insane.
A rumor spread: it seems the king has lost his mind. Naturally so—when everyone is mad, the one sane man will appear mad. It is simple arithmetic. The villagers were worried and agitated. Among the mad were many thoughtful people—for the distance between a thinker and a madman is very small. Thinkers often go mad, and madmen often begin to think.
Those thoughtful madmen, some leaders among them, gathered to decide what to do. “We cannot proceed without changing the king. If the king is mad, how can we be governed?” By evening they had assembled outside the palace and shouted slogans: the king must be replaced; the king is mad, the vizier is mad, the queen is mad.
The king, the vizier, the queen stood atop the palace pondering. Their soldiers were mad, their servants were mad—everyone was mad. What now? The king asked the vizier to think quickly. The vizier said, “There is no remedy but to quickly drink from that well.” The three told the people, “Wait a little; we will cure our madness.” They went and drank from the well. That night there was great rejoicing in the village. People danced and sang: the king’s mind is now sound.
Humanity is stricken by a deep foundational madness. Some great derangement grips our very life-breath. And we initiate every new child into it. Those who refuse appear rebellious; if they refuse, we call them mad. We will forcibly beat and hammer them back onto the path—so that they too go mad.
That is why it is dangerous to be healthy in this world. Whoever becomes inwardly healthy must pay dearly. Some are shot, some are poisoned, some are crucified. This is a world of madmen; healthy people are not tolerated. In this world of madmen, the greater the madness, the more endearing the person seems—because he feels like one of us, walking the same roads we are walking.
So, what I want to say to you is simply this: what is the way out of this deep madness that grips humanity? If we do not seek a way, the fruit will be death. Whatever we do, in the end death will catch hold of us. And it is not necessary that death will come only after many days—it may come tomorrow, today, in this very moment.
Tonight I ask you to reflect a little: if whatever you are doing ends only in death, what meaning does your doing have? If what you do does not set your feet toward the deathless, if your eyes do not open toward the deathless, if your movement is not in the direction where death is not—then what is its use? How far does it have meaning and purpose?
Life is an opportunity. And the moments we lose can never be retrieved. Life is an opportunity—we can transform it in any way, in any form. Whatever we do with it, it becomes that. Some convert it into property—spending their entire life, all of life’s opportunities and energy, transforming it into wealth. But when death stands before them, wealth is futile. Some labor a lifetime to convert life’s opportunity into fame, into renown. Fame comes, prestige comes, the ego is gratified. But when death stands before them, ego, fame, and glory are all in vain.
What is the touchstone by which you can know your life has not been wasted?
There is only one touchstone: when death stands before you, what you have gathered in life does not prove futile. That into which you converted the opportunity of life, that for which you staked your whole life—when death stands before you, it does not become meaningless; its significance remains.
That which is meaningful in the face of death is truly meaningful; all else is useless. I repeat: that which is meaningful in the face of death alone is meaningful; all else is futile.
Very few keep this in remembrance. This touchstone, this criterion, this way of seeing is before very few. Is it before you? I invite you to consider: I may run all my life and gather—scholarship, wealth, prolonged austerities, great renown, write some books, paint some pictures, sing some songs—but when my whole life stands before the final test, will any of these have meaning in the presence of death, or not?
If not, then it is wise to become alert today—and to engage in that direction by which I might accumulate a different kind of treasure, create a different kind of strength, give birth to such an energy within that when death is present there is something in me that survives it, something which death cannot destroy.
This is possible. And if it were not, then all religion would be nonsense and futile. It has happened; it can happen even today; it can happen in anyone’s life. But it does not drop from the sky, nor is it given as a gift, nor can it be stolen, nor will you get it for free by sitting at the feet of some guru. It cannot be obtained from anyone else. It has to be born; it has to be created. It can only be crafted by investing your own labor, your life, your resolve, your entire energy.
But steps will not be taken in this direction so long as what we are doing seems perfectly right to us. As long as the way we are living feels right to us, steps in this direction cannot begin.
Somewhere our life is deluded, somewhere it has gone wrong. Somewhere our direction takes us down roads that reach nowhere. The birth of this realization is necessary. For the birth of this realization, the touchstone I consider essential is to weigh your life by placing it before death. One day it will be weighed anyway—but by then nothing can be done. Whoever begins to weigh it beforehand, he certainly can do something. In his life something happens; in his life a condensed revolution takes place. We must begin weighing from today—daily; moment to moment.
Bernard Shaw once quipped that there should be courts in this world before which every person must present himself every three years and prove the meaningfulness of his last three years of living. It was a joke. But suppose such courts existed—there would be great difficulty. How would you prove your life’s significance? How would you say, “From the living I have done, this fruit has come, this meaning has arisen, this essence has been produced”?
No matter—let there be no such court. But within each person the court of conscience must exist, before which he stands every day, even every moment, and asks: Why am I living? Will what I am living lead to anything? Will I arrive somewhere? Will this race end? Will suffering end? Will darkness end? Will death end—or not? In whose heart these questions stand dense and tall, in that life religion begins. Reading scriptures does not begin religion. Constantly weighing your own life before yourself—that is how religion is born. It needs to be weighed daily—moment to moment.
So, for this initial consideration I say this much. On this basis, over these three days, I will speak to you of that path by which we can turn away from the direction of death and move toward the deathless.
You may think, “If an immortal life could be found, how wonderful.” The mind longs, “If only we could escape death.” Another thought arises, “How to attain the deathless?” But no—the real longing to attain it will not arise until our present life stands revealed in its total futility—until our current style of living, our methods, our thinking, the movement of our life-breath have all become exposed as empty. Until we see clearly that whatever I am doing is utterly futile. Until the restlessness, the panic, the anxiety arise that what I am doing is futile, how will imagination rise in the direction of the meaningful? How will the thought awaken?
So for today, only this: bring death before you. We all keep it behind our backs; we show it our spine. Whoever turns his back on death lives in great deception.
Once I was on a journey. In the rainy season I had to stop for a while by a mountain stream. My car halted; a torrent was in spate. Two or three cars behind also stopped. The people in them were strangers, but seeing me, they came over and we began to talk. The talk turned to this very point. They asked, “What is the most worthy subject to think about?” I said, “There is only one—death.”
We spoke at length. They said they would return and meet me. I joked: there is no surety you will return to meet me. Perhaps I will not survive; perhaps you will not. Perhaps both will survive, and yet we may not meet.
I told them a small story—never imagining what would happen. The stream subsided; as they were leaving I said:
In China a king became angry with his vizier and imprisoned him, deciding that on a certain morning he would be hanged. In that realm it was customary that on the morning of an execution the king himself would visit the prisoner and fulfill his last wish. This vizier had long been dear to the king, but some lapse had occurred and the king had decreed death. On the appointed morning, the king came early, dismounted, and said, “If you have any last wish, I will fulfill it.”
At once tears welled in the vizier’s eyes. The king was surprised. The vizier was brave; he had not known tears in life. It was impossible that fear of death had made him weep. The king asked, “Seeing tears in your eyes, I am amazed.”
The vizier said, “I do not weep because my death is near. I weep for another reason. I weep seeing your horse.”
The king asked, “What is there in my horse to weep about?”
The vizier said, “For years I labored to learn an art—a science—by which I could teach a horse to fly. But the breed of horse that can learn to fly never came my way. The horse you ride today is of that very breed. So tears came to my eyes that the art I spent my life learning will die with me.”
The king thought: if a horse could be taught to fly, that would be astonishing. He said, “Then there is no need to be upset. Don’t weep. How long will it take to teach this horse to fly?”
The vizier said, “Only one year.”
The king said, “If the horse learns to fly, your death sentence will be rescinded; you will be vizier again, and we will give you great wealth. And if after a year the horse has not learned to fly, we will hang you then. No harm in it.”
The vizier mounted the horse and went home. At home people were already mourning him as dead. Seeing him, they were astonished. They asked how he had returned. He told the story. Still his wife and children wept. He said, “Stop weeping.” But his wife said, “I know you have no art to make a horse fly. What madness is this? Instead of dying today, you will die a year from now. For us, that year will be spent waiting for your death—only sorrow. If you were to trick the king, you should at least have asked for twenty years, fifty years.”
The vizier laughed. “You do not understand the ways of life. What certainty is there in a year? I may die; the horse may die; the king may die. A year is a long time. Had I asked for twenty years, the king would never have agreed—too long. One year is a long time. Anything can happen—I may die, the horse may die, the king may die. The matter will be deferred.”
I told them this story. And then the unimaginable happened. All three died that very year—the king, the vizier, and the horse.
The stream had fallen; they drove off, saying, “We will surely come back to meet you.”
Still they said the same thing. Our habits are such that however much is said, we return to our old sayings and doings. For me it is a daily affair: I explain the same thing again and again; people ask the same thing in reverse.
As they left, again they said, “We will return and meet you.” I was delighted.
I laughed. Their car went on. Then my car followed. Barely two miles ahead I found them dead. Their car had collided, and they were gone. My driver said, “This is strange—you said just now…”
I say the same to you. There is no surety that you will reach home tonight. Perhaps today you will reach; tomorrow you will not. Perhaps tomorrow you will reach; the day after you will not. How long can you keep escaping? One day will surely come when you will not arrive. Whether that day is ten years away or twenty makes no difference. The wise one brings that day close—today.
Go home tonight with this thought: if I do not rise in the morning, what then? Go with this thought: if tomorrow morning I am not—what then? One morning will surely come when you will not be. This you can take as certain. There is no reason to doubt it. It needs no proof. One day the sun will rise, and you will not be. Many lay upon the earth; now they are gone. You are—soon you will not be.
In life, nothing is more certain than death. And yet it is what we think about least. Everything else is uncertain and doubtful. Perhaps there is God, perhaps not. Perhaps there is soul, perhaps not. Perhaps this whole world we see is, perhaps it is not—perhaps it is a dream. Still, one thing is certain, inevitable, beyond doubt: what is here now will not be here forever. Death is certain. There is no greater truth than death. Yet we keep it behind us and never think of our dying. And if someone reminds you, you say, “Don’t speak such ill-omened words. Why talk of death!”
We keep the thought of death at arm’s length. But however far you keep it, death loves you too much to stay away long. Whoever reflects upon life finds that death is the most certain thing.
Then why not make this most certain fact the primary element of our contemplation? Why not build our philosophy of life on this? Let whatever philosophy we have be founded upon death—for it is the only reliable foundation; all others are uncertain. Why not place it as the base? And that fact which we must face someday—why not grasp it and face it today?
Whoever agrees to face it today—whoever begins to contemplate it now—his whole movement and direction change. His life becomes something else altogether. Whoever can think on death today, and finds the courage to do it now, brings it before him and removes it from behind—whoever accepts it today—his steps and his breath cease to move toward death. For him a new door, a new path opens.
How that path can open—I will speak of that.
For tonight I only wish to plant this small seed in your mind: that you will think on this and bring this fact before you. Tonight, as you fall asleep, fall asleep contemplating death, so that upon waking tomorrow as you go about your day, again and again you may remember: What I am doing—what is happening—what I am building—what I am collecting—does any of it have meaning in the face of that final death?
I am not saying: renounce and run away. I am not saying: stop doing. I am only saying: let it become clear before you that in the presence of death—standing before death—what I am doing has no meaning. Let this much become clear. I am not asking you to abandon it, nor to flee from it. Only a clear awareness is needed. Then a new thirst, a new search will arise on its own. All this will continue as it does—no great difference. But alongside it, a new movement will begin. Slowly you will find you are still doing all these things, but your life-breath is no longer in them. You are doing all the same work, but now only your body is involved; your soul has embraced another direction.
In this world, in life, much must be done merely to keep the body going. But it does not end there; there is something more within. To attain and develop that, something else is needed—not in opposition to this, not by running away from it—but right here. If your direction becomes clear and your longing becomes clear, then even these seemingly futile tasks can become meaningful parts of a greater work.
This earning of bread, this wearing of clothes, this building of a house—this too can be meaningful if steps begin in the direction of the soul. Then all of it becomes meaningful for the soul; it becomes the groundwork and the foundation.
The body becomes a staircase to the soul. All these minor tasks are entirely futile in themselves if the heart is not moving toward the soul. But if the life-breath starts moving in that direction, the same tasks become meaningful.
Between the divine and the world there is no fundamental conflict, no enmity. But the world, taken by itself, is futile. When it begins to revolve around the center of the divine, it becomes meaningful.
Mahavira eats food and breathes. Krishna drinks water, Christ wears clothes—but there is a vast difference. A great, great difference. We only wear clothes—and nothing further happens. We preserve the body, but for what? We eat, but what is the use of preserving the body? We tend only to the means, and perish because life has no end in view. Means can be meaningful only if there is an end. Means by themselves are utterly futile.
Suppose a man builds a road—his whole life breaking forests, laying gravel, making the way. Ask him, “Where does this road lead?” He says, “I am not going anywhere.” Then the road is useless. We all build such roads—to nowhere.
Whoever is not going toward the divine, toward the deathless—his life is such a road: he builds it but will not travel it.
In one whose heart has become eager to go to the divine, to immortality, then this whole petty life—the laying of little stones, the spreading of gravel, the clearing of brush, the making of the way—becomes meaningful. We all build roads; very few among us arrive. Because while building the road we had no thought of arriving. It is more important that I ask, “Why do I want to live?” than that I tirelessly arrange to go on living. It is more right that I ask, “Why do I want to be?” than that I only keep protecting my being.
This thought, this question must arise within you. Very few questions arise in our minds. Questions do not arise—and without questioning, how will the search begin? Without the longing to seek, how will effort move in that direction?
All this I will speak of slowly over the next three days. For tonight I say only this much: sleep with death as your companion. Fall asleep thinking that it lies beside you. Keep it before you, keep it with you—it is with you; acknowledge it. Whoever befriends death, takes death as companion, should remember: it will not be long before the divine is with him. He has taken the first step. Whoever has befriended death and taken it along has taken the first step. The deathless will be with him—if not today, then tomorrow; sooner or later, the divine will be near.
Everything is hidden in befriending death. I call him a seeker who has taken death along. I call him worldly who is running from death, trying to avoid it, refusing to take it along.
I will not say more. The camp’s real discussion begins tomorrow morning. This is only a prelude, that if any birth of seeking can happen in you, it can happen only if you fulfill this first condition of the seeker.
Do not turn your face from death. Look into its eyes. Draw it near. Sleep with it tonight—thinking upon it, thinking upon your own death, knowing it to be always near—this very moment it could happen. By tomorrow morning, new questions will be born in your mind. If they arise, I am here for three days—bring them to me, we will discuss them. If no questions arise, if bringing death near gives rise to nothing within you, then do not come again in the morning. There would be no point. No meaning. If your own death stirs nothing in you, then do not come. For whatever I can say has meaning only after that.
When the vision of your own death begins to appear, when anxiety and the question awaken—“What shall I do? Death surrounds me on all sides—what shall I do? How shall I rise above it? If all around everything is to perish, what path can I find to attain the imperishable?”—then your coming tomorrow will have meaning. What I say will be relevant then, because I will speak of building the bridge that leads from death to the deathless.
I am deeply obliged for the love and quiet with which you have listened. I pray that the divine grants you the awareness of nearness to death.
Osho's Commentary
Over the next three days I will speak with you a little about the search for life.
Before I begin tomorrow morning, it is essential to say at the outset: there is no reason to call what we take to be life by the name of life. And until this becomes clear—until it is well known in the presence of our own hearts that what we are taking as life is not life at all—the search for true life cannot even begin.
If someone mistakes darkness for light, there will be no search for light. And if someone mistakes death for life, he will remain deprived of life.
If what we have assumed is wrong, then the fruit of our entire life will also be wrong. Our understanding determines what our search will be.
The first thing I wish to submit is that life becomes available to very few.
Birth is available to all. Most people take birth itself to be life and fall into delusion. What we call life is only an opportunity to attain life—to attain it or to lose it. Through it, life can be realized, and through it, life can be lost.
What we call life is only an opportunity, a possibility. It is a seed—from which something may develop, or may not. The seed may lie waste; no sprout may emerge, no flower may bloom, no fruit may ripen. Both possibilities exist.
And as it has been so far, the life-seed of the many lies mostly wasted. Only in a very few do the sprouts appear, the flowers open, and the fragrance spreads. These few we revere and remember. But we fail to remember one crucial thing: that the very same seed has been given to us, and the very same fragrance can be ours.
Whoever looks at Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, and Christ and does not feel within the sting of insult—“The same seed is within me, and I too can attain the very life they attained”—for such a one all worship is futile, all show and hypocrisy—one thing.
To escape this sting, we have made Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira into gods—only to avoid the pain. If they are also human, then we must begin to repent our own humanity. If they are as human as we are, we have no place to hide, no excuse left. So to escape from humiliation, pain, sorrow, we have thrust upon them the notions of God, Son of God, tirthankara—what all foolishness have we not imposed!
They are human beings like us. They were human beings. But some human seeds develop rightly, and from within them the light of the divine begins to shine. Many seeds do not develop.
If religion has any relevance, it is this: that all seeds become what they are to become; that what lies hidden within them is brought to light. For this the very first fundamental is what I am saying to you today: until it dawns upon us that the direction in which we are heading and what we are doing is utterly wrong, no revolution, no transformation, no turning is possible.
What we commonly call life is little more than dying slowly day by day. And a long death cannot be called life. A man dies at seventy; the process of dying goes on for seventy years. Some die at a hundred, some at fifty. We sit quietly, thinking this prolonged dying is life.
Today you are one day less than you were yesterday. Tomorrow, again one day less. What you think of as increasing age is, in fact, decreasing life. The birthdays you celebrate are merely milestones bringing you closer to death. From every side we run, and in the end we find we have arrived at death. However we run, whatever we do, by a thousand devices and arrangements—we are only arranging to escape death. Someone gathers wealth, someone fame, someone position, someone power—every effort is a defense against tomorrow’s death, to create some security against it. But all arrangements break, and death arrives.
A small story comes to mind.
A king in Damascus saw a dream one night. He stood beneath a tree beside a horse when a dark shadow approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he was seized with fear. The shadow said, “I am Death. Be ready tomorrow, and be at the appointed place. I am coming to take you.” His sleep broke, the dream vanished. He was terrified. At dawn he summoned the greatest astrologers of his realm, the learned interpreters of dreams, and asked the meaning of this sign: “Last night a dark shadow placed a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I will come tomorrow to take you. I am Death. Be ready and be at the right place.’”
There was no time—only until tomorrow evening, when the sun would set and death would arrive.
The astrologers said, “There is little time to deliberate. If you have the swiftest horse, mount it and flee. The farther you can go, the better.”
What else could human intelligence suggest? To get as far as possible from the palace, from the capital—what other remedy is there? If one had asked you or me, what else would we advise? They advised rightly enough. Human reason does not run very far; it cannot see deeply. The simple idea is: run—escape death.
The king lacked no swift horses. The swiftest was brought. He mounted and fled. The horse was very fast, and slowly the king’s mind became reassured by the speed. It was natural to feel, “I will be saved, I will get away, far away.”
The capital fell far behind, the kingdom faded, towns and villages slipped away. The horse ran on. That day, the king did not stop; he neither ate nor drank. Who would stop to eat or drink when death is behind him? He did not halt the horse nor water it. That day only distance mattered.
By noon he had come very far. He was elated. Until noon he had been anxious; by afternoon he was humming songs. The thought arose, “Now I have come quite far.” By evening he had gone hundreds of miles. When the sun was setting, he tethered his horse in a mango grove and stood beneath a bush—at ease. He was about to thank God that he had come far enough when the same hand he had seen in the night fell upon his shoulder. He froze. Looking closely—there stood the same dark shadow. The shadow said, “I was very worried whether you would be able to come so far! Because this is the very place destined for your death. I wondered whether you could possibly traverse such a distance in time. But your horse was truly swift, and you rode well, and you have arrived at the exact time.”
However we run, this will happen one day. Whether you have dreamt it or not makes no difference. One day Death will meet you at the appointed place.
It may be that our directions of flight differ, our roads differ, our horses’ paces differ—that may be. But in the end there is little difference. Some day, beneath some bush, a hand will be laid upon your shoulder. Then you will find that what you were fleeing has met you. And you will panic. From that which you tried to escape, in truth you were running toward. There is no way to escape death.
Wherever we run, we run toward death. Running itself leads into death. Whoever runs will arrive in death.
It may be that the poor run slowly—no horse, running on foot. The rich run on great horses; kings on the swiftest. But in the end, those without horses arrive at the same place as those with them.
What is the way? What path? What shall we do?
First, what I want to say to you: whatever you are doing—all of it is taking you toward death. This is no startling revelation. All that has ever been done has led to death. A very few people have eluded death; and what they did, you are not doing at all. Across human history, only a handful have escaped death; and what they did, you are not doing at all. So whatever preparations you are making—they are preparations for death. Whether pleasant or unpleasant to hear, the fact and the truth are that all our preparations are preparations for death.
In these three days I would like to discuss with you: what are the signs of preparing for death, and how can one prepare for life?
Perhaps within you too there is a longing to know and attain life. In truth there is no human being without the longing to attain life. And yet some madness has gripped the whole of humanity—a great, deep insanity. A new child arrives and is initiated into it. Perhaps this even seems natural; if a child refuses initiation, we think him mad.
The day Mahavira leaves home, people call him mad. The day Buddha leaves his palace, he too is taken for mad. Christ as well is considered mad. When a whole humanity is mad, whenever a sane person is born he is taken to be mad.
Let me tell another small story; perhaps it will make my point clearer.
In a village one morning an old woman came and dropped something into the village well, saying that whoever drank from it would go mad. The village had only two wells—one for the villagers, and one in the king’s palace. By evening—out of sheer necessity—the entire village had gone mad; they had to drink. Only three abstained: the king, the queen, the vizier—those who had not drunk were spared and remained sane. By evening the whole village was insane.
A rumor spread: it seems the king has lost his mind. Naturally so—when everyone is mad, the one sane man will appear mad. It is simple arithmetic. The villagers were worried and agitated. Among the mad were many thoughtful people—for the distance between a thinker and a madman is very small. Thinkers often go mad, and madmen often begin to think.
Those thoughtful madmen, some leaders among them, gathered to decide what to do. “We cannot proceed without changing the king. If the king is mad, how can we be governed?” By evening they had assembled outside the palace and shouted slogans: the king must be replaced; the king is mad, the vizier is mad, the queen is mad.
The king, the vizier, the queen stood atop the palace pondering. Their soldiers were mad, their servants were mad—everyone was mad. What now? The king asked the vizier to think quickly. The vizier said, “There is no remedy but to quickly drink from that well.” The three told the people, “Wait a little; we will cure our madness.” They went and drank from the well. That night there was great rejoicing in the village. People danced and sang: the king’s mind is now sound.
Humanity is stricken by a deep foundational madness. Some great derangement grips our very life-breath. And we initiate every new child into it. Those who refuse appear rebellious; if they refuse, we call them mad. We will forcibly beat and hammer them back onto the path—so that they too go mad.
That is why it is dangerous to be healthy in this world. Whoever becomes inwardly healthy must pay dearly. Some are shot, some are poisoned, some are crucified. This is a world of madmen; healthy people are not tolerated. In this world of madmen, the greater the madness, the more endearing the person seems—because he feels like one of us, walking the same roads we are walking.
So, what I want to say to you is simply this: what is the way out of this deep madness that grips humanity? If we do not seek a way, the fruit will be death. Whatever we do, in the end death will catch hold of us. And it is not necessary that death will come only after many days—it may come tomorrow, today, in this very moment.
Tonight I ask you to reflect a little: if whatever you are doing ends only in death, what meaning does your doing have? If what you do does not set your feet toward the deathless, if your eyes do not open toward the deathless, if your movement is not in the direction where death is not—then what is its use? How far does it have meaning and purpose?
Life is an opportunity. And the moments we lose can never be retrieved. Life is an opportunity—we can transform it in any way, in any form. Whatever we do with it, it becomes that. Some convert it into property—spending their entire life, all of life’s opportunities and energy, transforming it into wealth. But when death stands before them, wealth is futile. Some labor a lifetime to convert life’s opportunity into fame, into renown. Fame comes, prestige comes, the ego is gratified. But when death stands before them, ego, fame, and glory are all in vain.
What is the touchstone by which you can know your life has not been wasted?
There is only one touchstone: when death stands before you, what you have gathered in life does not prove futile. That into which you converted the opportunity of life, that for which you staked your whole life—when death stands before you, it does not become meaningless; its significance remains.
That which is meaningful in the face of death is truly meaningful; all else is useless. I repeat: that which is meaningful in the face of death alone is meaningful; all else is futile.
Very few keep this in remembrance. This touchstone, this criterion, this way of seeing is before very few. Is it before you? I invite you to consider: I may run all my life and gather—scholarship, wealth, prolonged austerities, great renown, write some books, paint some pictures, sing some songs—but when my whole life stands before the final test, will any of these have meaning in the presence of death, or not?
If not, then it is wise to become alert today—and to engage in that direction by which I might accumulate a different kind of treasure, create a different kind of strength, give birth to such an energy within that when death is present there is something in me that survives it, something which death cannot destroy.
This is possible. And if it were not, then all religion would be nonsense and futile. It has happened; it can happen even today; it can happen in anyone’s life. But it does not drop from the sky, nor is it given as a gift, nor can it be stolen, nor will you get it for free by sitting at the feet of some guru. It cannot be obtained from anyone else. It has to be born; it has to be created. It can only be crafted by investing your own labor, your life, your resolve, your entire energy.
But steps will not be taken in this direction so long as what we are doing seems perfectly right to us. As long as the way we are living feels right to us, steps in this direction cannot begin.
Somewhere our life is deluded, somewhere it has gone wrong. Somewhere our direction takes us down roads that reach nowhere. The birth of this realization is necessary. For the birth of this realization, the touchstone I consider essential is to weigh your life by placing it before death. One day it will be weighed anyway—but by then nothing can be done. Whoever begins to weigh it beforehand, he certainly can do something. In his life something happens; in his life a condensed revolution takes place. We must begin weighing from today—daily; moment to moment.
Bernard Shaw once quipped that there should be courts in this world before which every person must present himself every three years and prove the meaningfulness of his last three years of living. It was a joke. But suppose such courts existed—there would be great difficulty. How would you prove your life’s significance? How would you say, “From the living I have done, this fruit has come, this meaning has arisen, this essence has been produced”?
No matter—let there be no such court. But within each person the court of conscience must exist, before which he stands every day, even every moment, and asks: Why am I living? Will what I am living lead to anything? Will I arrive somewhere? Will this race end? Will suffering end? Will darkness end? Will death end—or not? In whose heart these questions stand dense and tall, in that life religion begins. Reading scriptures does not begin religion. Constantly weighing your own life before yourself—that is how religion is born. It needs to be weighed daily—moment to moment.
So, for this initial consideration I say this much. On this basis, over these three days, I will speak to you of that path by which we can turn away from the direction of death and move toward the deathless.
You may think, “If an immortal life could be found, how wonderful.” The mind longs, “If only we could escape death.” Another thought arises, “How to attain the deathless?” But no—the real longing to attain it will not arise until our present life stands revealed in its total futility—until our current style of living, our methods, our thinking, the movement of our life-breath have all become exposed as empty. Until we see clearly that whatever I am doing is utterly futile. Until the restlessness, the panic, the anxiety arise that what I am doing is futile, how will imagination rise in the direction of the meaningful? How will the thought awaken?
So for today, only this: bring death before you. We all keep it behind our backs; we show it our spine. Whoever turns his back on death lives in great deception.
Once I was on a journey. In the rainy season I had to stop for a while by a mountain stream. My car halted; a torrent was in spate. Two or three cars behind also stopped. The people in them were strangers, but seeing me, they came over and we began to talk. The talk turned to this very point. They asked, “What is the most worthy subject to think about?” I said, “There is only one—death.”
We spoke at length. They said they would return and meet me. I joked: there is no surety you will return to meet me. Perhaps I will not survive; perhaps you will not. Perhaps both will survive, and yet we may not meet.
I told them a small story—never imagining what would happen. The stream subsided; as they were leaving I said:
In China a king became angry with his vizier and imprisoned him, deciding that on a certain morning he would be hanged. In that realm it was customary that on the morning of an execution the king himself would visit the prisoner and fulfill his last wish. This vizier had long been dear to the king, but some lapse had occurred and the king had decreed death. On the appointed morning, the king came early, dismounted, and said, “If you have any last wish, I will fulfill it.”
At once tears welled in the vizier’s eyes. The king was surprised. The vizier was brave; he had not known tears in life. It was impossible that fear of death had made him weep. The king asked, “Seeing tears in your eyes, I am amazed.”
The vizier said, “I do not weep because my death is near. I weep for another reason. I weep seeing your horse.”
The king asked, “What is there in my horse to weep about?”
The vizier said, “For years I labored to learn an art—a science—by which I could teach a horse to fly. But the breed of horse that can learn to fly never came my way. The horse you ride today is of that very breed. So tears came to my eyes that the art I spent my life learning will die with me.”
The king thought: if a horse could be taught to fly, that would be astonishing. He said, “Then there is no need to be upset. Don’t weep. How long will it take to teach this horse to fly?”
The vizier said, “Only one year.”
The king said, “If the horse learns to fly, your death sentence will be rescinded; you will be vizier again, and we will give you great wealth. And if after a year the horse has not learned to fly, we will hang you then. No harm in it.”
The vizier mounted the horse and went home. At home people were already mourning him as dead. Seeing him, they were astonished. They asked how he had returned. He told the story. Still his wife and children wept. He said, “Stop weeping.” But his wife said, “I know you have no art to make a horse fly. What madness is this? Instead of dying today, you will die a year from now. For us, that year will be spent waiting for your death—only sorrow. If you were to trick the king, you should at least have asked for twenty years, fifty years.”
The vizier laughed. “You do not understand the ways of life. What certainty is there in a year? I may die; the horse may die; the king may die. A year is a long time. Had I asked for twenty years, the king would never have agreed—too long. One year is a long time. Anything can happen—I may die, the horse may die, the king may die. The matter will be deferred.”
I told them this story. And then the unimaginable happened. All three died that very year—the king, the vizier, and the horse.
The stream had fallen; they drove off, saying, “We will surely come back to meet you.”
Still they said the same thing. Our habits are such that however much is said, we return to our old sayings and doings. For me it is a daily affair: I explain the same thing again and again; people ask the same thing in reverse.
As they left, again they said, “We will return and meet you.” I was delighted.
I laughed. Their car went on. Then my car followed. Barely two miles ahead I found them dead. Their car had collided, and they were gone. My driver said, “This is strange—you said just now…”
I say the same to you. There is no surety that you will reach home tonight. Perhaps today you will reach; tomorrow you will not. Perhaps tomorrow you will reach; the day after you will not. How long can you keep escaping? One day will surely come when you will not arrive. Whether that day is ten years away or twenty makes no difference. The wise one brings that day close—today.
Go home tonight with this thought: if I do not rise in the morning, what then? Go with this thought: if tomorrow morning I am not—what then? One morning will surely come when you will not be. This you can take as certain. There is no reason to doubt it. It needs no proof. One day the sun will rise, and you will not be. Many lay upon the earth; now they are gone. You are—soon you will not be.
In life, nothing is more certain than death. And yet it is what we think about least. Everything else is uncertain and doubtful. Perhaps there is God, perhaps not. Perhaps there is soul, perhaps not. Perhaps this whole world we see is, perhaps it is not—perhaps it is a dream. Still, one thing is certain, inevitable, beyond doubt: what is here now will not be here forever. Death is certain. There is no greater truth than death. Yet we keep it behind us and never think of our dying. And if someone reminds you, you say, “Don’t speak such ill-omened words. Why talk of death!”
We keep the thought of death at arm’s length. But however far you keep it, death loves you too much to stay away long. Whoever reflects upon life finds that death is the most certain thing.
Then why not make this most certain fact the primary element of our contemplation? Why not build our philosophy of life on this? Let whatever philosophy we have be founded upon death—for it is the only reliable foundation; all others are uncertain. Why not place it as the base? And that fact which we must face someday—why not grasp it and face it today?
Whoever agrees to face it today—whoever begins to contemplate it now—his whole movement and direction change. His life becomes something else altogether. Whoever can think on death today, and finds the courage to do it now, brings it before him and removes it from behind—whoever accepts it today—his steps and his breath cease to move toward death. For him a new door, a new path opens.
How that path can open—I will speak of that.
For tonight I only wish to plant this small seed in your mind: that you will think on this and bring this fact before you. Tonight, as you fall asleep, fall asleep contemplating death, so that upon waking tomorrow as you go about your day, again and again you may remember: What I am doing—what is happening—what I am building—what I am collecting—does any of it have meaning in the face of that final death?
I am not saying: renounce and run away. I am not saying: stop doing. I am only saying: let it become clear before you that in the presence of death—standing before death—what I am doing has no meaning. Let this much become clear. I am not asking you to abandon it, nor to flee from it. Only a clear awareness is needed. Then a new thirst, a new search will arise on its own. All this will continue as it does—no great difference. But alongside it, a new movement will begin. Slowly you will find you are still doing all these things, but your life-breath is no longer in them. You are doing all the same work, but now only your body is involved; your soul has embraced another direction.
In this world, in life, much must be done merely to keep the body going. But it does not end there; there is something more within. To attain and develop that, something else is needed—not in opposition to this, not by running away from it—but right here. If your direction becomes clear and your longing becomes clear, then even these seemingly futile tasks can become meaningful parts of a greater work.
This earning of bread, this wearing of clothes, this building of a house—this too can be meaningful if steps begin in the direction of the soul. Then all of it becomes meaningful for the soul; it becomes the groundwork and the foundation.
The body becomes a staircase to the soul. All these minor tasks are entirely futile in themselves if the heart is not moving toward the soul. But if the life-breath starts moving in that direction, the same tasks become meaningful.
Between the divine and the world there is no fundamental conflict, no enmity. But the world, taken by itself, is futile. When it begins to revolve around the center of the divine, it becomes meaningful.
Mahavira eats food and breathes. Krishna drinks water, Christ wears clothes—but there is a vast difference. A great, great difference. We only wear clothes—and nothing further happens. We preserve the body, but for what? We eat, but what is the use of preserving the body? We tend only to the means, and perish because life has no end in view. Means can be meaningful only if there is an end. Means by themselves are utterly futile.
Suppose a man builds a road—his whole life breaking forests, laying gravel, making the way. Ask him, “Where does this road lead?” He says, “I am not going anywhere.” Then the road is useless. We all build such roads—to nowhere.
Whoever is not going toward the divine, toward the deathless—his life is such a road: he builds it but will not travel it.
In one whose heart has become eager to go to the divine, to immortality, then this whole petty life—the laying of little stones, the spreading of gravel, the clearing of brush, the making of the way—becomes meaningful. We all build roads; very few among us arrive. Because while building the road we had no thought of arriving. It is more important that I ask, “Why do I want to live?” than that I tirelessly arrange to go on living. It is more right that I ask, “Why do I want to be?” than that I only keep protecting my being.
This thought, this question must arise within you. Very few questions arise in our minds. Questions do not arise—and without questioning, how will the search begin? Without the longing to seek, how will effort move in that direction?
All this I will speak of slowly over the next three days. For tonight I say only this much: sleep with death as your companion. Fall asleep thinking that it lies beside you. Keep it before you, keep it with you—it is with you; acknowledge it. Whoever befriends death, takes death as companion, should remember: it will not be long before the divine is with him. He has taken the first step. Whoever has befriended death and taken it along has taken the first step. The deathless will be with him—if not today, then tomorrow; sooner or later, the divine will be near.
Everything is hidden in befriending death. I call him a seeker who has taken death along. I call him worldly who is running from death, trying to avoid it, refusing to take it along.
I will not say more. The camp’s real discussion begins tomorrow morning. This is only a prelude, that if any birth of seeking can happen in you, it can happen only if you fulfill this first condition of the seeker.
Do not turn your face from death. Look into its eyes. Draw it near. Sleep with it tonight—thinking upon it, thinking upon your own death, knowing it to be always near—this very moment it could happen. By tomorrow morning, new questions will be born in your mind. If they arise, I am here for three days—bring them to me, we will discuss them. If no questions arise, if bringing death near gives rise to nothing within you, then do not come again in the morning. There would be no point. No meaning. If your own death stirs nothing in you, then do not come. For whatever I can say has meaning only after that.
When the vision of your own death begins to appear, when anxiety and the question awaken—“What shall I do? Death surrounds me on all sides—what shall I do? How shall I rise above it? If all around everything is to perish, what path can I find to attain the imperishable?”—then your coming tomorrow will have meaning. What I say will be relevant then, because I will speak of building the bridge that leads from death to the deathless.
I am deeply obliged for the love and quiet with which you have listened. I pray that the divine grants you the awareness of nearness to death.