What happens when one experiences severe illness?

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.…

The body is quickly affected. If the body has some disease, some affliction—if someone is gravely ill, a lifelong patient—can he still experience self-bliss or not?

Yes. About what you ask—“one who can experience self-bliss”—such a person has no awareness at all that “the body is mine.” Whether your body is healthy or ill, whether the pain is noticed by you or not, it has nothing to do with self-bliss. If even a little taste of self-bliss happens, that very little taste will make it clear to you that you are not the body. Then your notions about this body will become like the notions you have about someone else’s body. Your relation to this body will be almost like an actor’s relation to his role in a play. Just as when Sita of Rama was abducted—that was one thing. Valmiki writes that he went from tree to tree, weeping, asking, “Where is my Sita?” Even today in the theater, Sita of Rama is carried off, and this stage-Rama too goes from tree to tree asking,…

Osho, in the Chandogya Upanishad there is a sutra: na pashyato mṛtyuṁ pashyati na rogaṁ noto duḥkhatām, sarvaṁ ha paśyaḥ paśyati sarvam āpnoti sarvaśa iti. That is, the knower does not see death, nor disease, nor sorrow; he sees all as the Self and attains everything. You are a witness—does a buddha truly see even death, disease, and sorrow as the very Self? Kindly give us direction on this sutra.

Buddha uses nirvana in exactly this sense. When the flickering lamp of ego is extinguished, the whole sky is yours. The moons and stars are yours. When you are not, everything is yours. Understand this paradox well—here lies the secret of religion, the distilled essence of the mystics and seers. The sutra of the Chandogya is profound—very profound. Let the ego dissolve; you are no more; then all is yours. When you are not, nothing is “other.” It is the “I” that creates the “you,” the division. When the line of “I” disappears, the courtyard becomes the sky. Demolish the walls you have drawn around your yard—your courtyard is the open heavens. Na pashyato mṛtyum... To the knower death is not seen—he does not know death, he does not die—because whatever could die he let die in advance. Ego could die—and what is unreal alone can die. What is, is…

A friend has asked: Osho, if events happen in nature and feelings in man, then when one attains siddhi and experiences one’s separateness, do bodily pain and mental anguish stop?

This needs a little understanding. First, understand the difference between pain and suffering. If a thorn pricks your foot, two things happen. One is pain. Pain means you experience that there is hurt in the foot. I know there is hurt in the foot. You are the knower. The pain happens in the foot; you are the seer of it. You are the witness. This does not mean that if you are a witness and someone pricks your foot you will feel no pain. Do not fall into that illusion. There will be pain, because the prick of a thorn is an event. But there will be no suffering. Keep this distinction in mind. Suffering happens when I become one with the pain. When I say, “A thorn is pricking me,” then suffering happens. When I say, “A thorn is pricking the foot—and I am seeing it,” then there is…

Osho, if even the body is not healthy, how will I go beyond the body, and then beyond the mind? Osho, I have become very despondent—please give some guidance.

Samadhi! The body is always unhealthy. The body can never truly be healthy. That’s why the wise have called the body a disease. Not only the bodies of those admitted to hospitals—body as such is a disease. It is called a disease because the body is born and it will die. From birth onward, the body is dying. After birth, what else have you done except die? The moment you were born, dying began. A one-day-old child is already one day dead. With the very first breath taken after leaving the mother’s womb, that much death has already happened—the journey toward death has begun. After birth, only death is certain. And of that which is destined to die, what kind of health can there be? Health belongs only to the immortal. One who is truly healthy is one who knows the immortal. The body is mortal; death is hidden in…