Life and Death Meditations

Every death is news of your death. And whenever someone dies, if there is a bit of awareness in you, you will feel that you too have died. But man lives in the delusion that all others will die—I am the exception. I am not to die. It never occurs to anyone that I must die. However many die, man continues to trust in his own immortality. This trust in immortality is dangerous—better are the darshan of the great master that is Death. From it, the search will begin. “O Yama! Concerning that great, wondrous self-knowledge of the other world about which people doubt whether the Atman remains after death or not—please tell me the decision in this matter. This boon, of utmost gravity—other than this, Nachiketa asks for no other boon.” Standing before Death and seeking the deathless—this is the state of Samadhi. Toward this we shall travel.

With the life meditation you can take deep breaths. Just feel full of energy... life entering with breathing. Feel full and very happy, alive. Then after fifteen minutes, get up. These two -- the life and death meditation -- are going to help you tremendously. [The Hypnotherapy group that was present tonight. A group member said she had liked it so much and had found it helpful, Osho suggested that the meditation he had given (above) would be good for her also. He went on to talk about the significance of death .... ] And remember, there is no fear in death. We cannot be afraid of something which we do not know. To be afraid, one first needs to be acquainted. So the fear of death is not really a fear of death. It is just fear of losing life.

[A sannyasin, who is leaving, says: Would you say something about dying? I'm very much engaged with that. I awoke last night and suddenly I saw how absolute it was. I've never seen it before like that -- I could hardly get any air. In response to Osho's query she says she likes Kundalini meditation best.] So continue Kundalini in the morning, and in the night before going to sleep, start a death meditation. Just lie down, put the light off, and start feeling that you are dying. Relax the body and feel that you are dying, so you cannot even move the body -- even if you want to move the hand, you cannot. Just go on feeling that you are dying -- a four or five-minute feeling that you are dying, dying, and that the body is dead.

Aum, may my speech be rooted in my mind, and my mind rooted in my speech. O self-illumined brahman, be manifest unto me. Speech and mind form the basis of my knowledge, so please do not undo my pursuit of knowledge. Day and night I spend in this pursuit. I shall speak the law; I shall speak the truth. May brahman protect me; may he protect the speaker, protect the speaker. Aum, shanti, shanti, shanti.

But there are problems; theologicians have created them. The first problem they have created, and because of which this remembering becomes impossible -- to remember that you are already divine becomes impossible -- is a very deep condemnatory attitude. You go on condemning yourself: you are the sinner. They have created guilt in you. So how can a sinner be, right this very moment, the divine? He will have to get rid of the sin; he will have to suffer for his sins, and time will be needed. He will have to pass through purifications, and only when he has become holy, a saint, will he have a glimpse of the divine. Particularly in the West, Christianity has given everybody a deep guilt complex. Everybody is guilty -- not only about your own sins that you have committed, but also about the sin that Adam committed in the very beginning.…

Question: FOCUS ON FIRE RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM FROM THE TOES UP UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU. MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMANAS, AS SUBJECTIVELY, LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES, AND AS, OBJECTIVELY, CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES, FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING It makes no difference whether you are afraid or not; it is irrelevant. In life, nothing is certain except death. Everything is uncertain; only death is not accidental. And look at the human mind. We always talk about death as if it is an accident. Whenever someone dies we say his death was untimely. Whenever someone dies we start talking as if it has been an accident. Only death is not an accident -- only death. Everything else is accidental. Death is absolutely certain.