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Chapter Summary
PART 1 — Main Teaching: Osho teaches that between death and rebirth there is simply a gap — a vacuum where nothing happens because life is the realm of happenings and the body is the instrument of experience. In that gap consciousness can remain aware only of its own emptiness; without a body there are no events, no dreams, no time or space. The last desire or last thought at the moment of dying functions like a seed or checkpoint: it does not persist through the gap but becomes the first impulse when circumstances allow a new birth. If one dies fully conscious and desireless the automatic pull toward rebirth cannot take hold and the cycle can end, so a conscious death and birth are the doorway to final freedom. On consciousness: Osho affirms he remained fully conscious through the seven hundred years as awareness of the void, distinguishing awareness itself from embodied happenings. On boredom: boredom belongs to repetitive events and cannot touch the gap, because nothing occurs to repeat or tire you. On desire and rebirth: desire arises only in the dying body and the last desire acts automatically as the seed of the next life, so absence of that final desire prevents rebirth. On time and dreaming: time, space and dreams depend on the body and events, therefore the gap is beyond time and contains no dreams or experiences.
Questions in this Discourse
Between two lives there is a gap. If something is happening, then again it is another life. Nothing happens in the gap. You can remember it only as a gap, not filled by anything.
When we say that someone is alive we mean that something is happening in him. Life is the realm of happenings. Without a body, nothing happens: the body is the medium for things to happen. The moment you are beyond the body, or not in the body, nothing happens.
Then you can either be aware or unconscious: these are the two possibilities. If you are unconscious then you cannot remember. If you are conscious then you can remember. But the remembrance is only of the gap; there are no events.
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 the morning.
The same thing happens when you are dying: the last desire that you have in one life will become the first desire at the beginning of the next life.
In the gap between two lives, everything that is part of life ceases -- even time ceases. So when I say "seven hundred years," it is not my memory of the gap, it is only a reflection. In the gap itself time is not possible.
So many things are involved. Time is possible only when events are happening, otherwise you cannot create time. That is why, when many things have happened, retrospectively you feel that you have lived a long time. If nothing happens -- if nothing happens for a whole day -- then the day will seem very long. It seems very long because nothing has filled it; time has dragged on. But if you remember that same day, in retrospect it will seem very short because there were no events in it to make it look long.
On the other hand, if many things happen on a particular day, the day will seem very short. But if you remember that day, retrospectively, it will seem very long, because so many things happened.
Time is basically involved with events. If nothing is happening, you are not time-conscious -- you cannot be; and space consciousness too is lost.
There is no dreaming between one life and the next. Dreaming is not possible because even dreaming needs a body. You cannot experience anything without a body -- the body contains all the instruments of experiencing.
So if you are conscious between one life and another, you are only conscious of your consciousness. Nothing -- no thought, no desire but the last desire -- will have any effect on you. And the effect of your last desire is automatic, because to enter a body again was the last suggestion of your mind; nothing has to be done about it. If at the moment of death one dies fully conscious, with no desire, no thought, then rebirth becomes impossible.
If you go to sleep fully conscious, with no desire and no thought, then in the morning on awakening there will be no thought and no desire. In the same way the last thought that you have at the moment of death works like a seed, like a potential. Its working is automatic. Whenever there is an opportunity, a situation in which you can be reborn, you will be reborn. And if you have been conscious in your last life, then you will be conscious in this life also. Your birth will be a conscious birth; you will know what is happening.
Then that will be your last life. If this birth has been a conscious birth, then this death will be a conscious death. Then there can be no further birth possible. Once someone is born with full alertness, then that is his last birth. One more death will happen of course, but after that there will be no more births, no more deaths.
So when I say seven hundred years passed before this birth, it is just a reflection...
Questions this discourse answers
Short AI-written summaries of what Osho says in this discourse. Read the full text above for his own words.
What happened between my last life and my present life?
According to Osho, nothing happened between your last life and this one. There is only a bodiless gap where no events occur, because happenings require a body. In that interval you are either unconscious (no memory) or conscious (you remember only emptiness). Hence the question “what happened?” doesn’t apply—there were no happenings, only awareness or oblivion.
In simple terms: Between lives there’s just a quiet pause with no events; if you were awake you’d notice the silence, if asleep you’d notice nothing.
Was there any desire to be reborn during those seven hundred years?
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.
In simple terms: No—there’s no wanting between lives; only the last wish at death carries you automatically into the next birth.
What is the gap between death and rebirth?
According to Osho, the gap between death and rebirth is a bodiless interval of pure, empty awareness—a conscious vacuum where nothing happens. 'Happening' requires embodiment; without a body there is only witnessing. One may remain fully conscious in this no-event space until a new embodiment arises, but time there is mere emptiness, not experience.
In simple terms: It’s like being awake in a totally empty, silent space with nothing to do until you get a body again.
What happens when one is without a body?
According to Osho, being without a body means entering a dimension of no-happening: when there is nothing occurring, boredom cannot arise. Boredom belongs to repetitive events; in bodiless being there are no events, no repetition, just sheer nothingness. Therefore, in true disembodiment there is neither restlessness nor tedium—only the silent presence where the very possibility of boredom disappears.
In simple terms: Without a body, nothing happens, so you can’t get bored—it’s just quiet, empty stillness.