Stay calmly aware and real celibacy happens by itself—and that same awareness can stay clear even at death.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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…
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 this very lifetime, someone who has indulged—can he attain that understanding?
Absolutely he can; there is no question about it. It’s not even a question. While indulging, we can do so with understanding or without understanding. If we indulge with understanding, we move toward brahmacharya; if we indulge without understanding, we keep revolving in the same circle. So the issue is not indulgence; the issue is indulging while awake. Whatever we are enjoying—are we enjoying it awake or asleep? Sex has this particular twist: for lifetimes people indulge in it, but asleep. That’s why no real experience ever comes into our hands. In the moment of sex a person becomes almost unconscious, loses awareness. When he comes out and awareness returns, the moment is gone; then the craving for that moment begins again. The key formula of the discipline of brahmacharya is: how to remain awake at the moment of sex. And you can remain awake in that moment only if…
It is understood that in the past, many schools of yoga taught mainly through suppression. And quite a few did attain through it. Is it not possible that even today, the technique of suppression may suit a certain type of person?
When sex desire arises, one simply pays total attention to it, not judging, not saying this is good or bad not saying this is evil, not saying that this is a provocation from the devil. No -- no evaluation at all because all valuation belongs to the mind and witnessing is not of the mind. Good, bad -- distinctions all belong to the mind, and the witnessing is undivided, one. It is neither good nor bad, it simply is. One pays attention to hunger or to the sex desire, total attention -- and total attention is such an energy, it is fire-the hunger simply is burned, the sex desire is simply burned. What happens? What is the mechanism inside? You feel hunger. In fact, you have never been hungry. The body has been hungry, you have never been hungry. But you are identified with the body that, "I am the…
Osho, for a seeker who naturally feels like remaining unmarried in order to go beyond lust, should he cultivate the witness, or should he enter into desire and learn firsthand its futility or meaningfulness? Doesn’t this natural wish to remain unmarried indicate that he has already known its futility far and deep in the journeys of past lives? Can witnessing be cultivated without knowing its total futility?
First thing: a spontaneous wish to remain unmarried and desirelessness (akām) are not the same. If lust does not arise at all, then there is no question—this very question would not arise. If lust never arises within, where would this question come from? The wish to remain unmarried and the absence of lust are different matters. Many people wish to remain unmarried. In fact, those who are brimming with lust often want to avoid marriage, because for a lustful person marriage is a nuisance. Marriage means one woman and one man bound to each other. Lust does not want to be bound; lust wants to remain unbridled. So the wish not to marry is not necessarily a wish for brahmacharya (celibacy). Deep down, the wish not to marry can also be a wish for non-celibacy. Then, behind the decision not to marry there can be a thousand reasons. Marriage is…