According to Osho, the glass-casket experiment shows why searching for the soul with the tools and assumptions of matter misleads. The soul may be weightless, unaffected by gravity, and able to pass through barriers like light or X‑rays; hence no weight drop or broken glass. Until we adopt subtler, non-material inquiry, science will keep denying what lies beyond its laws.
Trying to weigh a dying person to catch the soul is like using a ruler to measure a song—you’re using the wrong tool, so you won’t find anything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, there was an experiment in Paris where a dying man was placed in a glass casket to test something about his weight. Would you care to comment?
Such experiments have been tried in many places, but they have not been conclusive. The idea behind them is natural—because science, when it thinks, thinks in the language of matter: if a man dies and there is something in him beyond the body, and that something departs, then the weight ought to decrease. But it may be that what departs is weightless. Why must it have weight at all? Or its weight may be so minute that we have no instrument to measure it. Take sunlight: does it have weight? It does. Put darkness on one pan of a scale and light on the other—if sunrays have weight, the lighted pan should dip. It doesn’t. You might conclude sunrays have no weight. And yet they do. If you could collect all the sunrays falling on one square mile, they would give about a tola of weight. But that is a…
Questioner: to find out if there is something like a soul in man, scientists have carried out experiments by placing a dying man in a glass casket. Please say something about this experiment.
There have been many experiments like this, but none of them have yielded results. Scientists think -- and naturally they think in terms of matter -- that if there is something other than matter in man, then with the passing away of his life or soul there should be some reduction in his body weight. But is it imperative that the element that goes out of one's body at death have weight? It can be weightless as well. Or it can have so little weight that it cannot be measured by any instruments available to us at the moment. For example, sun rays have a little weight, but there is no way to measure them. If all the sun rays spread over a square mile area are collected together, they will weigh roughly ten grams. But it is so difficult to work it out. Similarly, even if our souls have…
A friend has asked: Osho, the soul cannot be seen. Why is so much importance given to what cannot be seen? And why are you also speaking about this same unseen soul?
A tree is visible; its roots are not. The roots are hidden in the earth. But that does not reduce the value of the unseen roots. In fact, the visible tree depends entirely on those invisible roots. And whoever wastes time caring only for the tree and ignores the roots, his tree is bound to dry up. That tree will bear neither leaves nor flowers nor fruit. The life of the tree is hidden in its unseen roots. Whatever is truly important in life is hidden. What appears is only the outer shell. What remains unmanifest is the inner life-breath. The body is visible because it is the outer shell. What is within the body is not visible. But the value of what is unseen does not diminish for that reason. Rather, precisely because it is not visible, its search becomes all the more necessary. Let it not happen that…
Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, SANSHO, A DISCIPLE OF RINZAI, ONCE SAID TO SEPPO, "THE GOLDEN CARP IS OUT OF THE NET! TELL ME, WHAT WILL IT FEED ON?" SEPPO SAID, "WHEN YOU HAVE GOT OUT OF THE NET, I WILL TELL YOU." SANSHO SAID, "THE RENOWNED TEACHER OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED MONKS CANNOT FIND EVEN ONE WORD TO SAY ABOUT THIS TOPIC." SEPPO SAID, "I AM THE CHIEF ABBOT AND HAVE MUCH TO ATTEND TO." ON ANOTHER OCCASION, SOME TIME LATER, SANSHO SAID TO A MONK, "WHERE HAVE YOU JUST COME FROM?" THE MONK SAID, "KWATZ!" SANSHO SAID, "KWATZ!" THE MONK AGAIN SAID, "KWATZ!" SANSHO SAID, "KWATZ!" THE MONK SAID, "IF YOU STRIKE ME BLINDLY, I SHALL SAY `KWATZ!'" SANSHO PICKED UP HIS STAFF, AND THE MONK PUT HIMSELF IN READINESS TO RECEIVE A HIT.
If there is no soul, then go and ask the same question to a rock. Ask the rock, "Is there a soul or not?" and the rock is not going to say, "I don't believe in any soul." The rock will not say anything; there is nobody to deny or affirm. In fact, you cannot deny yourself. It is not possible. You cannot say "I am not." It is self-contradictory. He says, "I will not be anywhere." It is impossible not to be anywhere. You will be somewhere. You ARE somewhere, Dr. Kovoor. Your body may dissolve into matter, your mind may dissolve into atmosphere -- but everything that is in you will be there. Nothing will be lost. And this concept of soul is just a symbol. It simply shows that you are a unity -- body, mind, and something beyond it because you can watch your own thoughts.