A Conscious Life is Rewarded with a Conscious Death

For the last week I have known that I have cancer. From that time, except for a few moments of panic and fear, I have felt a deep calmness and relaxation coming into my being.

Have I already given up my life, or is this the quietness of acceptance?

We have given up our lives at the very moment when we were born, because the birth is nothing but a beginning of death. Each moment you will be dying more and more.

It is not that on a certain day, at seventy years old, death comes; it is not an event, it is a process that begins with the birth. It takes seventy years; it is mighty lazy, but it is a process, not an event. And I am emphasizing this fact so that I can make it clear to you that life and death are not two things. They become two if death is an event which ends life. Then they become two; then they become antagonistic, enemies.

When I say that death is a process beginning with birth, I am saying that life is also a process beginning with the same birth – and these are not two processes. It is one process: it begins with birth, it ends with death.

But life and death are like two wings of a bird, or two hands, or two legs.

Even your brain has two hemispheres, separate, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. You cannot exist without this dialectics.

Life is a dialectics – and if you understand this, a tremendous acceptance of death naturally comes to you. It is not against you, it is part of you; without it you cannot be alive.

It is just like the background of a blackboard on which you write with white chalk: the blackboard is not against the white chalk; it simply gives it emphasis, prominence. Without the blackboard your white writing will disappear. It is like day and night – you see it everywhere, but you go on behaving like blind people. Without the night there is no day.

The deeper you enter into the dialectics… it is a miraculous experience. Without inaction there is no action; if you cannot relax, you cannot act. The more you can relax, the more perfection will be in your action. They appear to be opposites; they are not. The better you dissolve into sleep in the night, the sharper, the younger you will wake up in the morning. And everywhere in life you will find the same dialectical process.

The mystics of Zen have a koan: they ask the disciples to meditate on the sound of one hand clapping. It is absurd, there cannot be any sound of one hand clapping. Clapping with what? For clapping two hands are needed, apparently opposed to each other but deep down creating a single clap; united in their efforts, coherent, neither opposed to each other nor contradictory to each other, but complementary.

The meditation is given for the simple reason so that you can become aware that in life you cannot find a single instance supporting the sound of one hand clapping. The whole existence is two hands clapping: man and woman, day and night, life and death, love and hate. The deeper the disciple meditates… slowly slowly he becomes aware that in existence it is impossible to find anything.

And the master asks everything – “Have you found it? Have you heard the sound of one hand clapping?”

Many ideas come to their minds: the sound of running water, and they think perhaps this is it. And they run to the master to tell him, “I have got it: the sound of running water.”

And they will get a hit from the master’s staff: “You idiot! This is not the sound of one hand clapping. There is duality; just go and see. All those rocks in the water, they are creating a sound; it is not the sound of one, it is always the sound of two.” In fact, there cannot be a sound of one. Frustrated thousands of times, each answer that the disciple finds is rejected. He comes to the realization that sound is always of the two.

Silence is of the one; only silence can be the answer.

It is not a clapping. But going through all this process to reach to the silence… and then he comes to the master and the master asks, “Have you heard it?”

And the disciple bows down to his feet, tears of joy flowing from his eyes. He cannot even say, “Yes, I have found it.” That will not be accurate. He has not found silence; on the contrary, he has disappeared in silence. It is not a finding, it is a disappearing.

He is no more. Only silence is.

Who is there to say now, “I have found the answer?” – hence the tears of joy and a grateful head touching the feet of the master.

And the master says, “I do understand, don’t be worried. Don’t be worried that you cannot say it. Nobody can say it.

“That’s why sometimes when you had come before, rushing with an answer, even before you told me the answer I hit you with my staff and told you, `You idiot! Go back!’ And you were puzzled, that you have not even said the answer and it has been rejected.

“Now you can understand: it is not a question of this answer or that answer. All answers are wrong. Only silence – which is an existential presence, not an intellectual answer – is right.”

You are fortunate to know that within seven days you are going to die, that you have cancer.

Everybody has cancer, just a few people are lazy!

You are speedy! American!

Most people are Indians; even in dying, they will take time. They are always late, always missing the train.

I say you are blessed to know – because everybody is going to die, but because it is unknown when, where, people go on living under the illusion that they are going to live forever. They always see others dying. That supports logically their standpoint that “It is always the other who dies. I never die.”

You must have seen many people dying, giving you a strong support, a rational background that it is always the other who dies. And when you die, you will not know, you will be unconscious – you will miss the opportunity of knowing death.

Those who have known death are unanimous in their opinion that it is the greatest orgasmic experience of life.

But people die unconsciously. It is good that there are diseases which are predictable.

Cancer means that you have known seven days before – or seven months, whatever the time may be – that death is coming closer each moment. These seven days are not allowed to everybody. Cancer seems to be something you must have earned in your past life – because J. Krishnamurti died of cancer, Raman Maharshi died of cancer, Ramakrishna died of cancer. Strange… three enlightened people who are not mythological, who have lived just now died of cancer. It seems to be something spiritual!

It certainly has a spiritual dimension….

I am not saying that all those who die of cancer are enlightened beings, but they can become enlightened beings more easily than anybody else because others go on living under the illusion that they are going to live; there is no hurry. Meditation can be postponed – tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. What is the hurry? – and there are more urgent things which have to be done today.

Meditation is never urgent because death is never urgent.

For the man who comes to know that cancer is going to strike within seven days, everything in life becomes meaningless. All urgencies disappear. He was thinking of making a beautiful palace; the very idea disappears. He was thinking to fight the next election; the whole idea disappears. He was worried about the third world war; he is no longer worried. It doesn’t matter to him. What happens after him does not matter – he has only seven days to live.

If he is a little alert in those seven days he can live seventy years or seven hundred years or the whole eternity – because now meditation becomes a priority, love becomes a priority… dance, rejoicing, experiencing beauty, which were never priorities before.

This week, the full moon night will be a priority because he will never see the full moon again. This is his last full moon.

He has lived for years. Moons have come and gone, and he has never bothered about it; but now he has to take it seriously. This is the last moon, this is the last chance to love, this is the last chance to be, this is the last chance to experience all that is beautiful in life.

And he has no energy anymore for anger, for fighting. He can postpone; he can say, “After a week I will see you in the court, but this week let me be on a holiday.”

Yes, in the beginning you will feel sadness, despair, that life is slipping out of your hands. But it is always slipping out of your hands, whether you know it or not. It is slipping out of everybody else’s hands whether he knows it or not. You are fortunate that you know it.

I am reminded of a great mystic, Eknath. A man used to go to Eknath for years. One day he went early in the morning when nobody was there and he asked Eknath, “Please forgive me. I have come early so that there is nobody else, because I am going to ask a question which I have always wanted to ask but I felt so embarrassed that I suppressed it.”

Eknath said, “There was no reason to be embarrassed. You could have asked any question, any time. Sit down here.”

So in the temple they sat down. And the man said, “It is difficult for me; how to present it? My question is that for years I have been coming to you and I have never seen you sad, frustrated. I have never seen you in anxiety, in any kind of worry. You are always happy, always fulfilled, contented.

“I cannot believe this. My doubting mind says, ‘This man is pretending.’ I have been fighting with my mind, telling it that for years you cannot pretend: `If he’s pretending, you try.’ And I have tried – for five minutes, seven minutes at the most, and I forget all about it. Worries come, anger comes, sadness comes, and if nobody comes then the wife comes! – and all pretensions are gone.

“How do you manage day after day, month after month, year after year? I have always seen the same joy, the same grace. Please forgive me, but the doubt persists that somehow you are pretending. Perhaps you don’t have a wife; that seems to be the only difference between me and you.”

Eknath said, “Just show me your hand.”

He took his hand in his own hands, washed it, looked… very seriously.

The man said, “Is something wrong? What happened?” He forgot all about his doubt and his pretension and Eknath.

Eknath said, “Before I start answering your question, just by the way, I see that your lifeline is finished… just seven days more. So I wanted to tell it to you first because I may forget. Once I start explaining and answering your question, I may forget.”

The man said, “I am no longer interested in the question, and I am no longer interested in the answer. Just help me to stand up.” He was a young man.

Eknath said, “You cannot stand up?”

He said, “I feel all energy gone. Just seven days, and I had so many plans… everything shattered. Help me! My house is not far away, just take me to my house.”

Eknath said, “You can go. You can walk – you have come walking perfectly well just a few seconds ago.”

But the man somehow tried to stand up; he looked as if all his energy had been sucked out. And when he was going down the steps you could see that suddenly he had become old, he was taking the support of the railing. As he was walking on the road you could see – he could fall at any moment, he was walking like a drunkard. Somehow he reached home.

Everybody was getting up; it was early morning. And he went to sleep; they all asked, “What is the matter? Are you sick, not feeling well?”

He said, “Now even sickness does not matter. Feeling well or not well is irrelevant. My lifeline is finished – only seven days. Today is Sunday; the next Sunday, as the sun is setting I will be gone. I am already gone!”

The whole house was sad. Relatives started gathering, friends – because Eknath had never spoken a lie, he was a man of truth. If he has said it, death is certain.

On the seventh day just before the sun was setting – and the wife was crying, and the children were crying, and the brothers were crying, and the old father and the old mother had become unconscious.

Eknath reached the house, and they all said, “You have come right in time. Just bless him; he is going for an unknown journey.”

And in seven days that man had changed so much; even Eknath had to make an effort to recognize him. He was simply a skeleton.

Eknath shook him; he somehow tried to open his eyes. Eknath said, “I have come to say to you that you are not going to die. Your lifeline is still long enough. I said that you are going to die in seven days as an answer to your question. That was my answer.”

And the man jumped up. He said, “That was your answer? My God! You had already killed me. I was just looking outside the window for the sun to set and I would have died.”

And there was rejoicing…. But the man asked, “What kind of answer is this? This kind of answer can kill people. You seem to be murderous! We believe in you, and you take advantage of our faith.”

Eknath said, “Except that answer, nothing would have helped. I have come to ask you: in seven days have you been fighting with anybody, have you been angry with anybody? Have you been going to the court? – which is your practice; every day you are found in the court.”

And he was a man of that type, that was his business. Even for murders he was ready to be an eye witness; just pay him enough. In one murder he was an eye witness in the court, and the court knew that this man could not be an eye witness to everything – he was a professional witness.

The judge asked, “How far away were you standing when this murder happened?”

He said, “Seventeen feet, six inches.”

The judge said, “Great! So it means you measured the distance between yourself and the man who was murdered?”

He said, “Yes, because I knew some idiot or somebody else was going to ask the question, so it is better to be prepared. I measured inch by inch; it was exactly seventeen feet, six inches.”

That was his business.

Eknath asked, “What happened to your business? In seven days how many times have you eye witnessed, how much have you earned?”

He said, “What are you talking about? I have not moved from my bed. I have not eaten; there is no appetite, no thirst. I am simply dead. I don’t feel any energy, any life in me.”

Eknath said, “Now you get up, it is time. Take a good bath, eat well. Tomorrow you have a case in the court. Continue the business. And I have answered your question. Because since I have become aware that everybody has to die….

“And death can come tomorrow – you had seven days. I don’t have even seven days; tomorrow I may not see the sunrise again. I don’t have time for stupid things, for stupid ambitions, for greed, for anger, for hate; I simply don’t have time – because tomorrow I may not be here.

“In this small span of life, if I can rejoice in the beauties of existence, the beauties of human beings; if I can share my love, if I can share my songs, perhaps death will not be hard on me.”

I have heard from the ancients that those who know how to live automatically come to know how to die. Their death is a thing of beauty, because they only die outwardly; inwardly the life journey continues.

Your coming to know that you have cancer certainly will be shocking, will bring sadness and despair. But you are my sannyasin; you have to make this opportunity into a great transformation of being.

These few days that you will be here should be the days of meditation, love, compassion, friendliness, playfulness, laughter; and if you can do that, you will be rewarded by a conscious death. That is the reward of a conscious life.

An unconscious life comes to die unconsciously.

A conscious life is rewarded by existence with a conscious death. And to die consciously is to know the ultimate orgasmic experience of life, and to know simultaneously that nothing dies, only forms change. You are moving into a new house – and of course a better house, on a higher level of consciousness. You use the opportunity to grow.

And life is absolutely just, fair. Whatever you earn you never lose it, you are rewarded for it.

Accept that death is just part of your life, and accept the fact that it is good that you have come to know beforehand. Otherwise, death comes and you cannot hear the footsteps, the sounds of death approaching you. That’s why I said you are fortunate: death has knocked seven days before.

Use these days in deep acceptance.

Make these seven days as joyful as possible; make these seven days days of laughter.

Die with a joke on your face – the smile, the thankfulness, the gratitude for all that life has given to you.

And this I say to you: death is fiction. There is no death because nothing dies, only things change. And if you are aware, you can make them change for the better.

That’s how evolution happens.

That’s how an unconscious man becomes a Gautam Buddha.

Osho, The Osho Upanishad, Ch 8, Q 1