Rebirth

If the fifth plane is attained in the physical body, in which form is the person reborn after his death?

To attain the fifth body and to be awakened is one and the same thing. Then you no longer need the initial bodies. Now you can work from the fifth plane; now you are an awakened person. Hence, there is no difficulty. The initial bodies are required only up to the fourth body. If the fourth is activated and awakened the person becomes a deva -- a heavenly soul. If the fourth lies idle and asleep the person enters the realm of the pretas -- the evil spirits. You will have to return to the human form from both of these states, because you have no idea of your identity as yet. And in order to know your identity you must still have a need for the other. Only with the help of the other will you be able to know yourself. Right now to know yourself you need the…

During those seven hundred years, was there any desire to be reborn?

In the gap between lives no desire is possible. Desire happens when you are dying. Even for a desire to happen you have to be alive and in the body. The desire happens when you are dying -- and the last desire you have in one life becomes the first desire at the beginning of a new life. But in the gap itself, there is no desiring. 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…

Osho, when we are reborn, where is the accounting kept? What remains?

We are all bundles of habits. If you want to change these habits, resolve is needed. And the beginning of resolve is this: that it dawns on you that they can be changed. If you think they cannot be changed, your resolve will die completely. A German Jew, Frankl, during the last world war was imprisoned in a great camp. He has written—he has written very astonishing things—in his memoirs. Because he is a psychologist, he kept observing what was happening. December was approaching; the festival days were near. All the prisoners hoped that at least around Christmas there would be release; that around Christmas Hitler would show mercy and people would be freed. Frankl writes: until Christmas, however many tortures the prisoners were given, no one died. People remained ill, but there was a hope—Christmas is approaching. With that hope, there was strength in their life-breath. He writes: the…

Osho, if the fifth body becomes available while the physical body is still alive, then after death in which body will that person be born?

After the fifth body—if the fifth body has become available in the human body, and the fifth body never becomes available without awakening; if you have awakened in the fifth body (without awakening it does not become available)—then obtaining the fifth body and awakening are one and the same. Then you no longer need the earlier bodies; now you can function from the fifth body itself. You are an awakened person; now there is no difficulty. Now the earlier bodies are not needed. This question remains only up to the fourth body, always. If in the fourth body a man becomes a deva—the fourth body has become active and awake. If the fourth body remains inactive, asleep, he becomes a preta (a ghost). In both situations you will have to return, because you have not yet come to any knowing of your own nature; as yet, even to inquire into…