According to Osho, 'dying' in the master's presence means the ego melting through love and trust, not physical nearness. Physical distance is irrelevant; deepen devotion and the master's energy moves within you—he is 'inside' you. Each disciple must become the answer himself; sometimes the master's absence even helps surrender. Let love dissolve the 'I,' and communion happens beyond space.
You can ‘die’ to your ego by loving and trusting the master so much that he lives inside you, even if he’s far away.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, thoughts of death have been a frequent visitor during my disciplehood. How can a disciple die in a master's presence, especially when the master is physically distant? Osho, is mahakashyap the only answer?
They opened the door to see whether Ananda was still sitting outside -- because they had told him, "You sit outside. If we need some confirmation from you, we will ask you, but you cannot enter the conference." They saw a transformed being. The old Ananda, the old egoist was gone. An innocent being with tears of joy... and they all could see the light surrounding him. They invited him -- "You come in. Now there is no need for us to be worried. But it is strange... you could not become enlightened for forty-two years, and just after twenty-four hours you have attained that state" -- and this was continuously emphasized by Gautam Buddha. Ananda said, "It was my fault. His death became the death of my ego too." All the scriptures that are in existence are related by Ananda. There were other enlightened disciples who did not die…
Beloved Osho, I feel warm love in your presence and now I realize that when I am not close to you it does not happen in the same way. Is it still true that time and space do not make any difference in the great affair between master and disciple?
People's understanding was absolutely wrong that Ananda, who had burst into tears, must have loved the master more. Asked, he said, "I am crying because he was alive, and for forty-two years I have been his most intimate disciple -- intimate in the sense that I was always with him. In these forty-two years not even for a single day was I separate; even in the night I used to sleep in his room, just to be present in case he needed something. I am not crying because I was the most intimate, I am crying because even with such a long physical intimacy I have remained separate from him. Something has remained like a barrier." Gautam Buddha was not dead yet. He had closed his eyes, and he was relaxing into the eternal. He came back, opened his eyes, and said to Ananda, "Don't be worried. It was my…
Osho, kindly explain the meaning of inner closeness to the true Master.
Now the first man was making a mistake, but at least the mistake was his own. These others were making a borrowed mistake; even their mistake was not theirs. If you bow at someone’s feet because you saw someone else do it, it will be false. If you bow out of greed, it will be false. If you bow thinking you may gain something—standing in an election and hoping to win— People come to me. They touch my feet and say, “We are standing in the election; now your blessing is in your hands.” I tell them, “If you truly want my blessing, you will lose the election. Because I can only bless that God forbid you should win. It’s better to get out of this madhouse before you enter it. Once inside, getting out becomes very difficult. Once you reach Delhi, people die at Rajghat and never return. After…
Beloved master, to meet the buddha on the way and kill him also implies the death of the disciple. Can you say something about the master-disciple experience and being in the presence of the master?
Everybody who is present is not present in the sense that I am telling you to be present. You can be present as yourself for years and nothing will happen, and you can be present the way I am telling you just for a single moment -- and you will be reborn. The presence of the master is a fire in which you have to be burned, but whatever is gold will remain and whatever is not gold will be burned. To be twenty-four carat gold is a sheer joy. Utter purity like a flower will start surrounding you. A new energy that you had not known, although it is your own but has been asleep, dormant, becomes radiant. You start to glow in a new style of life and love, in a new way you dance and sing and celebrate. If the master's presence does not become a dance…
Last night you spoke of satsang and the importance of the disciple's proximity to the guru. Does this mean physical proximity? Is the disciple who lives at a great physical distance from the guru at a loss?
Yes and no! Yes, a physical closeness is necessary in the beginning because you cannot understand anything else right now, as you are. You can understand the body; you can understand the language of the physical. You exist at the physical, so yes, a physical closeness is necessary -- in the beginning. And I say no also because as you grow, as you start learning a different language which is of the non-physical, then physical closeness is not necessary. Then you can go anywhere. Then space doesn't make any difference. You remain in contact. Not only space, but time also doesn't make any difference. A Master may be dead, you remain in contact. He may have dropped his physical body, you remain in contact. If a trust happens, then time and space both are transcended. Trust is the miracle. You can be in closeness with Mohammed or Jesus or Buddha…