Tabula Rasa

Beloved Osho, I often hear you saying that every child comes to this world with an empty mind, as a tabula rasa. How is it possible that we, in spite of this, carry memories and conditionings from past lives? Would you please say something about this?

The same is going to happen with computers. It will help you immensely to remember, but it will help also in a negative way -- you will not have memory. Even the names of your friends you will have to check on the computer. Even the street number where you live you will have to check on the computer, because now there is no need for your own computer to work -- you have a mechanical device. The brain is not a problem because the brain is only a machine. The problem is the contents in the brain which is the mind. The brain is only a container, and each life you get a new container. The old content is shifted as a layer surrounding your consciousness. So when I say you get a fresh beginning I mean in the brain, not the mind. But in English they are being…

Osho, regarding the mind—as you say it continues from lifetime to lifetime and remains the same—does any subtle memory remain after a person dies?

Yes, the mind remains the same, and after a person dies all the memory remains with them. But layers settle over it. Imagine we don’t clean this room for seven years: today dust will come, and it will keep coming every day for seven years. After seven years, when we return, the top layer will be today’s, and below it the earlier layers will be pressed down. The seven-year-old layer will still be there, but buried very deep. It’s possible the top layer won’t even know that seven years of dust lie underneath. So the mind is traveling, and the journey is progressive. Every day you add something to it. Yesterday gets buried under today; then today will be buried under tomorrow. The previous birth gets buried under this birth, and the one before that under two births, and so on—down into what psychologists call the unconscious. Sometimes it happens…

That very mind is the source of your endless births. The body falls here; the mind continues the journey. Desire goes along. Ego goes along. The memory of deeds done goes along. The craving for deeds that were left undone goes along. The entire psychic-body travels on. Only the gross physiological frame falls in death. But the mind goes on. That very mind grasps a new body. That mind has grasped countless bodies before and will go on grasping them. Hence the wise do not call death a real death, because in truth nothing dies—only the garment changes. The body is no more than a garment. Understand this well too. Ordinarily we think the body comes first, and then the mind is born within it.

Beloved Osho, I heard you say that if a person can remember his birth and being in the womb, then the memory of his last death may come.I have tried to remember, but only imagination is there. I also heard you say that it is not possible to remember beyond three to four years old because the baby has no mind. Is there a remembrance that is not of the mind?

But Hindus have a totally different approach. It is to be remembered that this is the only point on which all the three religions that were born in India agree: about everything else they have their own philosophy, but about reincarnation they all agree. And that is not just an accident, because all three religions were working on the same lines -- looking into the unconscious of man -- and they all found the same results. To call the cow mother... the whole world laughs at it, but I don't think anybody understands why Hindus call the cow mother. If they are right -- the cow has the qualities of a mother, and it is far better to be connected with the cows than with the monkeys. So don't try to remember. It is not a question of remembering. You cannot cross the barrier with the conscious mind; you can…