Illness

Osho, if someone has a longer life ahead, can he take this illness upon himself or not? If he can, what is the method?

No—there is no method, and it cannot be taken. Because taking an illness would mean that the fruit of my actions could be received by someone else. Then all order would collapse. And if the fruit of my actions could go to another, then in this world no law, no rita (cosmic order) would remain. Then even my freedom could be given to someone, and my jivanmukti (liberation while living) could be given to someone. My sorrow, my happiness, my knowledge, my experience, my bliss—then everything would become transferable, could be handed over. No, in this world nothing is transferable. There is no way for it to happen. No way. And it is right that there is no way. Yes, such a feeling does arise in the heart; that too is appropriate and auspicious. Someone who loves Ramana may wish, “Let me take your cancer upon myself.” That wish is…

A friend asks, Osho, if an illness like cancer can arise when the embrace of the inner heaven and earth breaks, then why did enlightened ones like Ramakrishna and Ramana have to die of cancer? Had the heaven and earth within them become severed? They should have died of any disease except cancer.

Tao is an effort to bring earth and heaven close. Neither Ramana nor Ramakrishna were moving on the path of Tao. Ramakrishna and Ramana were walking on a path opposite to Tao. That too is a path: a path of taking earth and heaven farther and farther apart. They proceeded with the feeling that body and soul are separate. The body has to be dropped—and kept on being dropped; the expanse between body and soul has to be increased, the space widened; and a moment has to be brought where only the soul is experienced and the body is completely forgotten. So naturally, the entire connection between body and soul in Ramana and Ramakrishna had broken. Earth and heaven had gone as far apart as they can. Therefore I say, they should indeed have died of cancer. That is fitting. This does not mean they were not enlightened. Nor does…

Osho, is it possible that by attaining your state of consciousness a person could remain perfectly, physically healthy? Or is that not possible—that such is the law of Tao? Because I have heard that all true masters have been physically unwell.

Ramakrishna said, “Sharada, you do not listen. The day you bring the plate and I turn over in bed to the other side and do not look at your plate, understand that only three days of my life remain.” Sharada thought he was joking. But that is exactly what happened. One day Sharada entered his room with the food. Ramakrishna neither rose from the bed nor took any interest; instead, he turned his face toward the wall. The plate slipped from Sharada’s hand. She remembered what Ramakrishna had said years before. Ramakrishna said, “Whether the plate falls or not, nothing will change now. I am here only three more days. And today I will tell you—because you used to ask again and again and I kept silent—today I tell you that all my bonds with the body have broken. Somehow I have been holding on to a tiny bond—the bond…

The questioner asks: “Is it true that when the soul descends—when self-realization happens—the body too changes completely in every respect?”

That Word is hidden in you; nowhere else to go—not to Kashi, not to Kaaba. It pervades your every pore, your heartbeat—its very throb. Like music asleep in the veena—touch it and it wakes. But the inner veena is more marvelous: there is no instrument, no strings—only music—the unstruck sound. Enter and you will find no veena and no player—yet a wondrous, timeless music without beginning or end. To hear that music is to hear God. That music overflowed in Muhammad when the Quran descended; he trembled. It overflowed in the Vedic rishis—hence the Vedas are called apaurusheya—not composed by man. Whenever anything of worth is spoken, it comes from there; the rest is rubbish. Whenever truth or beauty appears, know it comes from there—whether the smile of a child or the passing beauty of a woman—deeper, it comes from there. The Gita, the Quran, the Bible—all arise there. And…