Soul

Osho, why did Mahavira call the soul “time”? Please tell us what relationship there is between time and the soul.

Albert Einstein considered two constituent elements of existence: time and space. And as his inquiry deepened, it seemed to him that calling them two was not quite right. So he chose a single term for both: spacetime. Space is outside; time is inside. If we understand life rightly, two things are needed for being. You need a place in which to be—you will occupy some room. You are sitting here; you have taken up a little space. That is kshetra, the sky, space. But that alone is not enough. If that were all, you would become an object. Then there would be no difference between you and a table or a chair. The table and the chair also occupy space, just as you do. The floor you are sitting on occupies space, just as you do. Then what is the difference between you and a stone? You have also occupied…

Do souls sometimes wander after leaving the body?

Some souls do find it difficult to take on a new body right after death. There is a reason for this, and perhaps you may not have thought that this could be the reason. All souls, if divided, would fall into three categories. One is the lowest -- people with the most inferior type of consciousness; another is of the very highest kind, very superior, the purest kind of consciousness; and the third consists of people in between -- a combination of something of both. Let's take the example of a damroo, a small drum. It is broad at the ends and thin in the center. Were we to reverse it so that it was broad in the center and narrow at the ends, we would understand the situation of disembodied souls. At the narrow ends there are very few souls. The most lowly souls find it as difficult to…

A friend has asked after the morning talk: Osho, do some souls keep wandering after leaving the body?

Some souls certainly do not at once take another body after leaving the old one. The reason? There is a reason—and perhaps it is not one you would ever have imagined. If we divide all souls, all personalities in the world, they will appear in three kinds. First, those of very low, degraded consciousness; second, those of very high, noble, utterly pure quality; and third, the great crowd in between that is a mixture of both, that goes along combining the bad and the good. Look at a damaru, the little hourglass drum: it is broad at both ends and narrow in the middle. Now invert the picture—thin at both ends and wide in the middle—and you will understand the state of the world: small at the extremes, thick in the middle, the damaru reversed. On these two ends are only a few souls. The very lowliest souls find it…

Osho, when the soul leaves the body and has not yet assumed another one, is it possible to describe what happens in that timeless interval, and the kind of environment in which it moves? And, along with this, since you have spoken of the soul’s freedom to take birth by its own will, does it also have the freedom to leave the body whenever it wishes—or not to leave it?

If you look at descriptions of hell’s fire, you’ll find this: people are burned in the fire, yet they do not burn up. The inconsistency doesn’t occur to you at that time—that you are being burned, the fire is terrible, the heat unbearable, yet you are not actually burning! That inconsistency may occur later, not in the midst of it. In the interval between two bodies there are two kinds of souls. First, those very bad souls for whom finding a womb will take time; I call them pretas. Second, the good souls for whom finding a suitable womb will also take time; they need a worthy womb—I call them devas. There is no fundamental difference in species—only differences of personality, character, quality of mind. Their experiences are different. The bad souls come back from this interval with such painful memories that the memory itself is the fruit called hell.…