The art of dying

Beloved Osho,
Can you say something about death and the art of dying?

Deva Vandana, the first thing to be known about death is that death is a lie. Death exists not; it is one of the most illusory things. Death is the shadow of another lie – the name of that other lie is the ego. Death is the shadow of the ego. Because the ego is, death appears to be there.

The secret of knowing death, of understanding death, is not in death itself. You will have to go deeper into the existence of the ego. You will have to look, watch, observe, be aware of what this ego is. And the day you have found that there is no ego, that there has never been – it appeared only because you were not aware, it appeared only because you were keeping your own existence in darkness – the day it is understood that the ego is a creation of an unconscious mind, the ego disappears and simultaneously death disappears.

The real you is eternal. Life is neither born nor dies. The ocean continues, waves come and go – but what are waves? Just forms, the wind playing with the ocean. Waves have no substantial existence. So are we, waves, playthings.

But if we look deep down into the wave there is an ocean, and the eternal depth of it and the unfathomable mystery of it. Look deep down into your own being and you will find the ocean. And that ocean is; the ocean always is. You cannot say, “It was,” you cannot say, “It will be.” You can only use one tense for it, the present tense: It is.

This is the whole search of religion. The search is to find that which truly is. We have accepted things which really are not, and the greatest and the most central of them is the ego. And of course it casts a big shadow – that shadow is death.

Those who try to understand death directly will never be able to penetrate into the mystery of it. They will be fighting with darkness. Darkness is nonexistential, you cannot fight with it. Bring light, and the darkness is no more.

How can we know the ego? Bring a little more awareness to your existence. Each act has to be done less automatically than you have been doing up to now, and you have the key. If you are walking, don’t walk like a robot. Don’t go on walking as you have always walked, don’t do it mechanically. Bring a little awareness to it, slow down, let each step be taken in full consciousness.

Buddha used to say to his disciples that when you raise your left foot, deep down say “Left.” When you raise your right foot, deep down say “Right.” First say it, so that you can become acquainted with this new process. Then slowly slowly let the words disappear; just remember “Left, right, left, right.”

Try it in small acts. You are not supposed to do big things. Eating, taking a bath, swimming, walking, talking, listening, cooking your food, washing your clothes – deautomatize the processes. Remember the word deautomatization; that is the whole secret of becoming aware.

We are creating
God every day.

The mind is a robot. The robot has its utility; this is the way the mind functions. You learn something; when you learn it, in the beginning you are aware. For example, if you learn swimming you are very alert, because life is in danger. Or if you learn to drive a car you are very alert. You have to be alert. You have to be careful about many things – the steering wheel, the road, the people passing by, the accelerator, the brake, the clutch. You have to be aware of everything. There are so many things to remember, and you are nervous, and it is dangerous to commit a mistake. It is so dangerous, that’s why you have to keep aware. But the moment you have learned driving, this awareness will not be needed. Then the robot part of your mind will take it over.

That’s what we call learning. Learning something means it has been transferred from consciousness to the robot. That’s what learning is all about. Once you have learned a thing it is no more part of the conscious, it has been delivered to the unconscious. Now the unconscious can do it; now your consciousness is free to learn something else.

This is in itself tremendously significant. Otherwise you will remain learning a single thing your whole life. The mind is a great servant, a great computer. Use it, but remember that it should not overpower you. Remember that you should remain capable of being aware, that it should not possess you in toto, that it should not become all and all, that a door should be left open from where you can come out of the robot.

There is no art of dying.
Or, the art of living
is the art of dying.
Live!

That opening of the door is called meditation. But remember, the robot is so skillful, it can even take meditation into its control. Once you have learned it, the mind says, “Now you need not be worried about it, I am capable of doing it. I will do it, you leave it to me.”

And the mind is skillful; it is a very beautiful machine, it functions well. In fact all our science, together with all our so-called progress in knowledge, has not yet been able to create something so sophisticated as the human mind. The greatest computers in existence are still rudimentary compared to the mind.

The mind is simply a miracle.

But when something is so powerful, there is danger in it. You can be hypnotized so much by it and its power that you can lose your soul. If you have completely forgotten how to be aware, then the ego is created.

Ego is the state of utter unawareness. The mind has taken possession of your whole being; it has spread like a cancer all over you, nothing is left out. The ego is the cancer of the inner, the cancer of the soul.

And the only remedy, the only remedy I say, is meditation. Then you start reclaiming a few territories from the mind. And the process is difficult but exhilarating, the process is difficult but enchanting, the process is difficult but challenging, thrilling. It will bring a new joy into your life. When you reclaim territory back from the robot you will be surprised that you are becoming a totally new person, that your being is renewed, that this is a new birth.

And you will be surprised that your eyes see more, your ears hear more, your hands touch more, your body feels more, your heart loves more – everything becomes more. And more not only in the sense of quantity but in the sense of quality too. You not only see more trees, you see trees more deeply. The green of the trees becomes greener – not only that, but it becomes luminous. Not only that, but the tree starts having an individuality of its own. Not only that, but you can have a communion with existence now.

And the more territories that are reclaimed, the more and more your life becomes psychedelic and colorful. You are then a rainbow – the whole spectrum; all the notes of music – the whole octave. Your life becomes richer, multidimensional, has depth, has height, has tremendously beautiful valleys and has tremendously beautiful sunlit peaks. You start expanding. As you reclaim parts from the robot, you start coming alive. For the first time you are turned on.

This is the miracle of meditation; this is something not to be missed. The people who miss it have not lived at all. And to know life in such intensity, in such ecstasy, is to know that there is no death. Not to know life creates death; ignorance of life creates death.

To know life is to know there is no death, there never has been. Nobody has ever died, I declare, and nobody is ever going to die. Death is impossible in the very nature of things – only life is. Yes, life goes on changing forms; one day you are this, another day you are something else. Where is the child you once were? Has the child died? Can you say that the child has died? The child has not died, but then where is the child? The form has changed. The child is still there in its essentiality, but now you have become a young man or a young woman. The child is there with all its beauty; it has been superimposed by new riches.

And then one day you will become old. Then where is your youth? Died? No, again something more has happened. Old age has brought its own crop, old age has brought its own wisdom, old age has brought its own beauties.

The child is innocent, that is his core. The youth is overflowing with energy, that is his core. And the old man has seen all, lived all, known all; wisdom has arisen, that is his core. But his wisdom contains something of his youth; it is also overflowing, it is radiant, it is vibrant, it is pulsating, it is alive. And it also has something of the child; it is innocent.

If the old man is not young also, then he has only aged, he is not old. He has grown in time, in age, but he is not grown-up. He has missed. If the old man is not innocent like the child, if his eyes don’t show that crystal clarity of innocence, then he has not yet lived.

If you live totally, cunningness and cleverness disappear, and trust arises. These are the criteria to know whether one has lived or not. The child never dies but only is metamorphosed. The youth never dies, there is only a new mutation again. And do you think the old man dies? Yes, the body disappears because it has served its purpose, but the consciousness continues the journey.

If death was a reality, existence would be utterly absurd, existence would be mad. If Buddha dies, that means such beautiful music, such splendor, such grace, such beauty, such poetry, disappears from existence. Then the existence is very stupid. Then what is the point? Then how is growth possible? Then how is evolution possible?

Buddha is a rare gem, it happens only once in a while. Millions of people try, and then one person becomes a buddha – and then he dies and all is finished, so what is the point?

No, Buddha cannot die. He is absorbed; he is absorbed by the whole. He continues. Now the continuity is bodiless, because he has become so expanded that no body can contain him except the body of the universe itself. He has become so oceanic that it is not possible to have small manifestations. Now he can exist only in essence. He can exist only as a fragrance, not as a flower. He cannot have a form, he can only exist as a formless intelligence of existence.

The world has grown more and more intelligent. Before Buddha it was not so intelligent, something was missing. Before Jesus it was not so intelligent, before Mohammed it was not so intelligent. They have all contributed. If you understand rightly, God is not something that has happened, but is happening.

God is happening every day. Buddha has created something, Mahavira has created something, Patanjali has created something, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Atisha, Tilopa – they have all contributed.

God is being created. Let your hearts be thrilled that you can become a creator of God! You have been told again and again that God created the world.

I would like to tell you: we are creating God every day.

And you can see the changes. If you look in the Old Testament, the words that the God of the Old Testament utters look so ugly. Something seems to be very primitive. The God of the Old Testament says, “I am a very jealous God.” Can you think of God being jealous? “Those who don’t follow me should be crushed and thrown into hellfire. Those who don’t obey me, great revenge will be taken on them.”

Can you think of these words being uttered by Buddha? No, the concept of God is being polished every day. The God of Moses is rudimentary; the God of Jesus is far more sophisticated, far more cultured. As man becomes cultured, his God becomes cultured. As man has more understanding, his God has more understanding, because your God represents you.

The God of Moses is law, the God of Jesus is love. The God of Buddha is compassion, the God of Atisha is utter emptiness and silence.

We are searching for new dimensions of God, we are adding new dimensions to God, God is being created. You are not just a seeker, you are also a creator. And the future will know far better visions of God.

Buddha does not die, he disappears into our concept of God. Jesus melts into the ocean of our God. And the people who are not yet awakened, they also don’t die. They have to come back again and again into some form, because the only possibility of being awakened is through forms.

The world is a context for becoming awakened, an opportunity.

Remember Atisha. He says, “Don’t wait for the opportunity” – because the world is the opportunity; we are already in it. The world is an opportunity to learn. It looks paradoxical; time is the opportunity to learn the eternal, the body is the opportunity to learn the bodiless, matter is the opportunity to learn consciousness, sex is the opportunity to learn samadhi. The whole existence is an opportunity. Anger is the opportunity to learn compassion, greed is the opportunity to learn sharing, and death is the opportunity to go into the ego and see “whether I am or I am not. If I am, then maybe death is possible.” But if you find for yourself that “I am not,” that there is pure emptiness inside, that there is nobody – if you can feel that nobodiness inside you, where is death? What is death? Who can die?

Vandana, your question is significant. You ask, “Can you say something about death?” Only one thing, that death is not.

And you ask “… and the art of dying?” When there is no death, how are you going to learn the art of dying? You will have to live the art of living. If you know how to live, you will know everything about life and about death. But you will have to approach the positive.

Never make the negative the object of your study, because the negative is not there. You can go on and on and you will never arrive anywhere. Try to understand what light is, not darkness. Try to understand what life is, not death. Try to understand what love is, not hate.

If you go into hate you will never understand it, because hate is only the absence of love. So is darkness the absence of light. How can you understand absence? If you want to understand me, you have to understand me, not my absence. If you want to study this chair, this chair has to be studied – not that when Asheesh has taken it away, you start studying the absence. What will you study?

Always be alert, never get hooked into anything negative. Many people go on studying negative things; their energies are simply wasted. There is no art of dying. Or, the art of living is the art of dying. Live! […]

I can teach you the art of living; that implies the art of dying, you need not learn it separately. The man who knows how to live, knows how to die. The man who knows how to fall in love, knows when the moment has come to fall out of it. He falls out of it gracefully, with a goodbye, with gratitude – but only the man who knows how to love.

People don’t know how to love, and then they don’t know how to say goodbye when the time has come to say it. If you love you will know that everything begins and everything ends, and there is a time for beginning and there is a time for ending, and there is no wound in it. One is not wounded, one simply knows the season is over. One is not in despair, one simply understands, and one thanks the other, “You gave me so many beautiful gifts. You gave me new visions of life, you opened a few windows I might never have opened on my own. Now the time has come that we separate and our ways part.” Not in anger, not in rage, not with a grudge, not with any complaint, but with tremendous gratitude, with great love, with thankfulness in the heart.

If you know how to love, you will know how to separate. Your separation will also have a beauty and a grace. And the same is the case with life; if you know how to live, you will know how to die. Your death will be tremendously beautiful. […]

Excerpted from Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Ch 14, Q 1 (Reviewed by Helen Walker)