What preparations should a seeker make for a conscious death in meditation?

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.…

In order for one to stay awake at the time of death, or in order for one to successfully experience a conscious death in meditation, please explain in detail how a seeker should work on the following: the body system, the breathing system, the state of breathing, the state of one's being, celibacy, the state of one's mind.

Recently, a well-known scientist conducted many experiments in this area. He took twenty patients suffering from the same illness. Ten of them he treated with medicine, while he kept the other ten only on water. The interesting thing was that the patients in both categories recovered together. Now what does this mean? What it means is simply that it is neither a question of medicine nor of water. The big question is that of persuading a man to drop his illness. If water does this work, then the patient can be cured by water. If homeopathic sugar pills succeed, then he is cured by the pills. If a charm proves effective, then it can cure too. If a patient has faith in a pinch of ash given by a fakir, then it can cure him too. Faith in the water of the Ganges also does the trick. Everything works. Even…

[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.

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, one can die with awareness, but how can one be born with awareness?

Most fasters spend twenty-four hours repeating, “I am hungry; I have not eaten,” with their minds absorbed in planning tomorrow’s menu. Then the fast is wasted; it is merely a hunger-strike. That is the difference: a hunger-strike means not eating; upavasa means “dwelling nearer and nearer.” Nearer to whom? To oneself. Away from the body, closer to the self. Even the word upavasa carries no implication of starving; it means nearer-dwelling. Thus one could be in upavasa even while eating—if one knows the eating is at a distance and “I am elsewhere.” And one could not be in upavasa even while not eating—if one keeps thinking, “I am hungry; I’m dying of hunger.” Upavasa is a psychological knowing of one’s separateness from hunger. Other sufferings too can be invited voluntarily. A man can even lie on thorns, simply to see that the thorns do not pierce me; they pierce elsewhere,…