According to Osho, in the gap between lives no desire is possible; desire arises only while dying, and the last desire of one life becomes the first impulse of the next. Thus, during those ‘seven hundred years’ there was no wish to be reborn; only the latent momentum of the last desire worked automatically, with no time, thought, or dreaming—merely bare consciousness.
No—there’s no wanting between lives; only the last wish at death carries you automatically into the next birth.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
During those seven hundred years, was there any desire to be reborn?
In the gap between lives no desire is possible. Desire happens when you are dying. Even for a desire to happen you have to be alive and in the body. The desire happens when you are dying -- and the last desire you have in one life becomes the first desire at the beginning of a new life. But in the gap itself, there is no desiring. For example, when you go to sleep, be aware of your last thought that will be your first thought in the morning. But there is no continuity of the thought in the gap, while you are asleep. Your last thought stops at this barrier, at this checkpoint, and it remains there. When you return to a waking state you have to pass through this same checkpoint again, over this same boundary, and your last thought at night will become your first thought in…
Beloved Osho, in discourse the other night you said that at one's death there is but a two or three second gap between which the soul travels from one body to the next. Master, you have said that your last life was seven hundred years ago. Where were you for all those years?
Just here, in Uruguay! Where else could I be? The whole existence is available. When you are not in a body, you are just part of the whole existence without any partition. The reason why I had to remain seven hundred years... A few people don't get into the next life immediately. Either the person is so wicked, so animalistic, so murderous, like Adolf Hitler... He is not yet reborn because he needs a certain kind of womb which may not be available for thousands of years: he has to wait. Or if you have attained a certain evolved consciousness there is the same problem: you need a certain womb. Unless that is available, you cannot get another birth. Ordinarily it is two or three seconds, because for the sleeping humanity the same kind of wombs are available. All day long millions of people are making love, and they are…
A friend has asked, Osho, the Gita says that whatever desire a person holds at the time of death, that is the birth he attains next. So if a person has spent his whole life in sin, and at the moment of death desires to become like Mahavira or Buddha in the next life, can that man become like Mahavira and Buddha in the next birth?
No one really wants to do religion; therefore we postpone it. We say, we’ll do it in old age—what’s the hurry now? There is great hurry to sin! That must be done now, it can only be done in youth. We’ll do religion in old age. And if some young person becomes religious or eager, the so‑called wise advise him, “It is not your age yet. For now, do irreligion.” Their meaning is: now is the age for sin. As long as strength is there, sin away; when strength is gone, then do religion. But is strength necessary for sin and not for religion? Is life necessary for sin, power necessary for sin—do you take religion to be some eunuch’s task that needs no strength! Remember, the very energy with which you sin becomes virtue. And when that energy is no longer in your hands, you can neither sin nor…
Osho, you were more awake as an infant than I am now. How did this courage and awareness happen?
In India, in Punjab, if you are traveling in Punjab -- you can ask Neelam -- never ask anybody, "What is the time?" because if it happens to be twelve you will be beaten. And if you can escape alive it will be just a miracle. It is just for a very philosophical reason -- but when philosophy comes into the hands of fools, this is what happens. Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, has said that the moment of samadhi is just like two hands of the clock meeting on twelve, where they are no longer two. He was just taking an example -- that in the moment of samadhi the two-ness of your being dissolves and you arrive at oneness. The same happens in death too. He explained later on that the same happens in death. Again the two hands which have been separately moving come together and stop,…
Osho, there is a story in the life of paramahansa ramakrishna, and we have heard it from you more than once, about his lust for the palate which sharada devi told about. Doesn't it indicate that desire is intrinsically related to living, to life itself?
One way is through something else. I give you a message, then you give it to somebody else, then he to somebody else. Then it reaches to whomever it was to be given -- to whom it may concern. Then it reaches -- and it has changed. Every time it is given to someone, it is changed. With our eyes we don't see alike. We cannot see alike because in a subtle way every instrument is different. So when I see light I feel it in a different way. When you see light you feel it in a different way. When a Van Gogh sees the sun, certainly he sees it in a different way, because he will become just mad, begin to dance, cry, scream. He will just be mad when he sees the sun. For one year Van Gogh continuously painted only sun pictures. He would not sleep:…