Use things but don’t cling to them, so when it’s time to go, you aren’t scared because nothing inside is being taken away.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How can we prepare ourselves for death?
And what is purity? Don't misunderstand me, purity has nothing to do with morality. Don't interpret it in a moralistic way. Purity has nothing to do with puritans. Purity simply means an uncontaminated state of mind, where only your consciousness is and nothing else. Nothing else really enters into your consciousness, but if you hanker to possess, that hankering contaminates you. Gold cannot enter into your consciousness. There is no way. How can you take gold into your being? There is no way. Money cannot enter into you r consciousness. But if you want to possess, that possessiveness can enter into your consciousness. Then you become impure. If you don't want to possess anything, you become fearless. Then even death is a beautiful experience to pass through. A man who is really spiritual has tremendous experiences but he never accumulates them. Once they have happened he forgets about them. He…Read the full discourse →
Osho, to remain awake even in death—or to successfully orchestrate a conscious death in meditation—what preparations should a seeker make concerning the body-system, the breath-system, the state of the breath, the state of prana, celibacy, willpower, etc.? Kindly shed detailed light on this.
But even in a cinema hall, where it is easier because it is all shadows, we do not remain witnesses. If we inspected the handkerchiefs of those exiting, we would know how many cried. We all know nothing is on the screen—only light and shadow. Yet everything “happens” there, and we become participants. Do not be mistaken that while watching a film you are merely a viewer—you become a participant. Someone pleases you, someone repels you; you identify. If we cannot be witnesses even to a film, how will we be witnesses in life? Life, too, is not much more than a film. At depth, like the play of rays on the screen, life is the play of electrical particles. If you reduce the body or a wall to its ultimate component, you find only electric particles. The difference between the screen and this is not great—two-dimensional there, three-dimensional here.…Read the full discourse →
Osho, we don’t know how to keep the ritual of your gathering; we don’t know how to smear ourselves with the ash of our own body. O Osho, you who teach the way to die, listen: we don’t know how to die before we die.
If you learn the art of dying, each morning you will find you are a child again. Butterflies call again; the dew speaks again; pearls are scattered all around once more; moon and stars turn mysterious. What does childhood mean? Innocence—no self-consciousness yet. Whoever learns to die every day wins the taste and doorway to childhood day after day. The delight that was in self-forgetfulness—where is it? We came to our senses, and we saw. You ask, “Before death we cannot die.” If you die only when you are killed—what art is that! Everyone dies when they are killed—dogs and cats, men and women. If you die only when death slays you, what will be your mastery? What will be your worth? That mighty Bhima, of whom it is told There dwelt the strength of sixty thousand elephants— He could not lift a single piece of wood off his chest…Read the full discourse →
Someone asked Osho's views on death and dying.
There is nothing as sure as death. Where there is life, there is bound to be death. He who bears not this fact in mind, wastes life, whereas he who knows this truth, obtains that which is immortal. I do not feel depressed at anybody's death, because there is no need to feel anything about it. However, it is a matter of sorrow, no doubt, if I see a life wasted. We have not to grieve after a dead body, but over a wasted life. You know, King Janak was called 'videh', i.e., without or beyond the body. Once, a young minister of his asked him, 'Your Excellency! How can you be considered without a body, when you do have a physical body? The king smiled but said nothing. After a few days, however, the king invited the minister for lunch. Such an invitation from the king himself was a…Read the full discourse →
[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.Read the full discourse →