Was Munshi-ji weak until now?

Osho, until now Munshi-ji wasn’t weak, was he?

When I went there again, it became a problem. No spiritual seekers came to listen to me. The lame, the crippled, the blind—everyone kept coming, saying, “Please touch us.” The child had survived. If I touch a hundred patients, fifty will survive anyway—not because I touched them. Those who don’t survive need not concern us; they won’t publicize it. The K. M. Munshis who didn’t get cured have done no publicity. And the K. M. Munshis who did get cured are doing publicity. Those who survive will become my advertisers; those who don’t, I have nothing to do with. Gradually a crowd will gather around me of those who benefited, and they will create a buzz—and that buzz keeps going. There is no value in this, no spirituality, no meaning. And when even people like K. M. Munshi fall prey to such showmanship, we should reflect that in this country…

Osho, I have two questions. The first is this: meditation, awareness—these states seem to remain only so long as the body and mind are healthy. When the body and mind become dull or weak, all this seems to disappear. And before death most people do become dull—both in body and in mind. So just before dying a person loses so much control over himself that none of these methods seem to work. Which would mean that in the end even a meditator or one who tries to be aware will end up just like someone who has done none of this.

No. A few things need to be understood. In the beginning, when you start moving toward meditation, then the conditions of body and mind do influence it—because from where you start, you are nothing more than body and mind. It’s like I begin to walk out of this room: I take one step, but I’m still inside; I take two steps, I’m still inside. So the smell of the room—its fragrance or stink, its air—still affects me. But I am walking toward the door, where the room ends and I can go beyond. Once I step outside, the room’s fragrance or stink has no meaning; it no longer affects me. In the primary journey, as you move into meditation, you are still passing through the room of body and mind. So it will affect you—very much so. If the mind becomes a little dull, the body unwell, meditation will get…

A friend has asked: Osho, if through meditation or spiritual practice one can conquer death, does not the same state occur in sleep? And if it does, why can’t death be conquered through sleep?

But meditation and hypnosis are not the same. Understand me carefully. I said: up to this point it is hypnosis, mesmerism—so long as we are manufacturing suggestions. When the manufacturing of suggestions stops and you awaken—where awareness begins—there meditation begins. Where witnessing begins, meditation begins. And the reason for this hypnosis is that you have fallen into a reverse hypnosis. In scientific language, this is not hypnosis but de-hypnosis. Not mesmerism, but the breaking of mesmerism. We are the ones mesmerized—but we don’t know it. In life we have become hypnotized, and we have no idea how many kinds of hypnotic trances we have taken on, by how many devices we have produced them. A large part of our life is hypnosis. And when we want to be hypnotized, we don’t notice what we are doing. For example… we live like this all our lives. If we became aware of…

Osho, in the last two verses there remains a small yet special point. It says that for the meditator there should be a specific seat, a pure place, an upright body, the gaze fixed on the tip of the nose, and the vow of brahmacharya. Then it says: fearless, and with an inner being properly quieted. What does fearless mean for a seeker? Please clarify.

Fearless, and with a properly quiet mind! This is important—very important. Because the one who carries fear will not be able to enter into the Divine. Why? Then we must understand fear a little. What is fear? What is its fundamental basis? Why are we afraid? What is the root cause from which all fear arises? There is fear of illness. Fear of going bankrupt. Fear of losing reputation. There are a thousand fears. But deeply there is only one fear—the fear of death. Illness frightens, because in illness a partial glimpse of death begins. Poverty frightens, because in poverty too a partial glimpse of death appears. Disrepute frightens, because in losing status a partial taste of death begins to show. Wherever there is fear, look closely and you will see some trace of death. Even if not immediately obvious, scratch the surface a little and it will be revealed:…

Osho, you have said that if a seeker undertakes the experiment with intense resolve—“I want to die, I want to return to my center”—then within a few days his life-energy (prana) begins to contract inward, and the seeker may first, from within, and later from without, see his own body lying there as if dead; then his fear of death is erased forever. So the question is: in such a state, is any special preparation or precaution necessary to be able to return safely to the body again? Or does the return happen all by itself? Please shed light on this.

Human life, in many senses, is the life of the mind. What we take to be a physical event is, in its depths, a mental event as well. Whatever appears upon the body has its birth in the mind. If we understand a couple of points in this regard, then the question that has been asked will be easier to understand. Until about fifty years ago all illnesses were thought to be physical. In these past fifty years, as our understanding of disease has grown, the proportion considered purely physical has gone down and the mental proportion has gone up. Today even the most diehard materialist is ready to accept that more than fifty percent of illnesses are mental. And even those that are physical are influenced more than half by the mind. The mind is the fulcrum of our personality. From there we live, from there we fall ill,…