Life and Death

Please explain. Is life an observer and death observed?

No, both are the observed -- life and death. Beyond both is the observer. You cannot call that observer 'life' because life contains death in it. You cannot call that observer 'death' because death presupposes life. That observer is just transcendence. That which you are is neither life nor death. You pass through life, you pass through death, but you are neither. You are just a witness to it all. You pass through happiness, you pass through misery, you pass through disease, you pass through health, you pass through success, you pass through failure -- but you are none of these. You remain the watcher, you remain the witness. That witnessing is beyond all dualities. So don't try to make it identified with one part of the polarity. Life is one part of the same circle in which the other half, death, exists. Death and life are not apart, they…

Osho, in fact it is not really clear to me whether we are living or dying. Sir, as it appears to me, the society in which we live is not healthy in its true sense and is dominated by contentious issues like education, religion and science, instead of being dynamic. As I understand it, because of these various conditions we are swinging like a clock’s pendulum. Would you please suggest some educational reforms that could make our lives worth living?

If we want to create a living society, we must not make the person a part of society. We must make the person a complete, free unit in himself—a unit in itself. And society will be the interrelationship of such individuals. Understand this well. Until yesterday, society was important, and individuals were its parts. That is the sign of a dead society: society important, individuals parts. The sign of a living society will be: individuals are important, and society is only their interrelationship. Society will be the interrelationship among living individuals. The individual will not be a part; the individual will be an independent unit. And society will be the relationship among independent units. Until now, the individual was not an independent unit; society was the independent entity, and the individual its part. The individual had to live as society determined. The hallmark of a living society will be that…

I am tired. I feel I am dying all the time. But what changes? Nothing. Even if I die, life and death are perfect, perfectly round, and I go on running after my own tail. Is there no place where I can stop? One moment in which I can stop, one single moment -- but then I go on passing, running, and I miss I don't even know what. Then I cry. What else can I do?

Then again when you have reached to the climax and the ejaculation happens and the orgasm happens, before you start returning from the peak -- you have reached the peak and then the return -- between these two, again the gap. Find that gap, and you will have found the very secret of meditation. Tantra has used these gaps as meditation, and they are the greatest. The gap that you will find in breathing is not such an intense gap, because breathing is such an ordinary phenomenon, taken for granted. If you look between two thoughts in the mind you will find the gap. But the gap that you will find in your sexual orgasm will be most intense, because that is the most intense experience of your life -- where you again go wild, where you again explode into thousands of pieces. You fall altogether in parts, you fall…

Osho, in the Chandogya Upanishad there is a sutra: na pashyato mṛtyuṁ pashyati na rogaṁ noto duḥkhatām, sarvaṁ ha paśyaḥ paśyati sarvam āpnoti sarvaśa iti. That is, the knower does not see death, nor disease, nor sorrow; he sees all as the Self and attains everything. You are a witness—does a buddha truly see even death, disease, and sorrow as the very Self? Kindly give us direction on this sutra.

Buddha uses nirvana in exactly this sense. When the flickering lamp of ego is extinguished, the whole sky is yours. The moons and stars are yours. When you are not, everything is yours. Understand this paradox well—here lies the secret of religion, the distilled essence of the mystics and seers. The sutra of the Chandogya is profound—very profound. Let the ego dissolve; you are no more; then all is yours. When you are not, nothing is “other.” It is the “I” that creates the “you,” the division. When the line of “I” disappears, the courtyard becomes the sky. Demolish the walls you have drawn around your yard—your courtyard is the open heavens. Na pashyato mṛtyum... To the knower death is not seen—he does not know death, he does not die—because whatever could die he let die in advance. Ego could die—and what is unreal alone can die. What is, is…