No hope? Fortunately, there is!

From the Italian Osho Times Newsletter No. 326, sent out in September 2026

We all know the world around us is sooo much bigger than we are. But not everyone has a sense of the real dimensions of what we might call “our personal world” – and yet to the open eye, this too turns out to be much bigger than we believe.

Ancient scriptures maintain that the macrocosm (the universe) is infinite, just as the microcosm (the human being) is infinite.

A story by Bertrand Russell, as told by Osho:

A bishop is thinking of God, heaven, and his services to God his whole life, and of his life of celibacy, purity, prayer. Just as he is falling asleep he is thinking that if he dies, paradise is certain. He falls asleep and has a beautiful dream. You can call it a beautiful dream, you can call it a nightmare; it depends.

He dreams that he has died – the same thread of thought has perhaps continued. He has died. He is so excited – naturally, because now he is going to face God, and his record is so clean. He has never done anything against the scripture, against God’s commandments. He has been really religiously religious, very fanatic about each small detail – it had to be according to the holy scripture. Naturally he was absolutely confident.

He is taken somewhere – he thinks of course he is going to paradise – and he is left before a huge door. He tries to see where it ends but it doesn’t seem to end anywhere; it is so huge in all dimensions. Neither can he see the left side nor the right side, nor can he see above; and he feels so tiny that not even a small ant knocking on your door will feel so bad as he felt, because he was even smaller in comparison to the door. And knocking on that door – you can understand his misery.

He was fully aware…who is going to hear? If the door is so big, what about the palace? And what about the throne? And what about God the father? The bishop feels he has no hope, but there is nothing else to do so he goes on knocking. He can hear his own knocks, that’s all; and there is silence, no answer. The same thing his whole life he has been praying…. Now he becomes a little angry. His whole life he has been praying, but no answer… […]

Is this not a deception, what Jesus said: “You will be welcomed with bands and angels singing Alleluia? No angels, no bands – but at least somebody should open the door and let me in.”

At that moment, a small window – I am saying it is small in comparison to the door; it was still so vast that he could not see its proportions – a small window opened. And now he had become accustomed to the size of ‘small’ things there. A small head; he could not see the whole face, just parts and pieces, but he could figure out that somebody was looking at him. And he felt really crushed, humiliated; he had never been insulted like that. But what to do?

The bishop says, “Are you God?”

The head says, “No” – and his voice is so loud that the bishop feels almost as if his ears are going to burst.

He says, “Can’t you say it a little softer? Just whisper; that will be enough for me to tolerate. Don’t speak, just whisper. If you are not God, then who are you?”

The head says, “I am only the guardsman. God I have never seen, because my duty is on the gate, and God lives far, far away – we have only heard through holy scriptures – in an immense palace. I don’t know the way. I don’t have the courage…and moreover my duty is here, I cannot go anywhere else. But who are you? – because I cannot see you.”

The man has such big eyes, how can he see such a small ant? And the bishop says, “I am Bishop So-and-So.”

The guard says, “That does not make any sense. Please tell me, from where are you coming?”

The bishop says, “I am coming from the planet earth.”

The guard says, “That is too small a place – there are millions of earths. Which earth? You please tell me the index number.”

“Index number?” the bishop says, “we never heard about an index number. Our earth has an index number?”

“Every planet has to; otherwise how are we going to figure out from where you are coming, who you are? If you don’t know the index number at least please tell me the index number of your solar system. In fact that is the lowest category we gather information about in the library. Below that, every solar system has its own library. Only important things from that solar system are fed to the computer in the central library. Perhaps your earth is mentioned somewhere, but you have to tell me about your solar system. From which sun are you coming?”

The bishop says, “We used to know only one sun.”

The guard says, “There are millions of solar systems – you seem to be completely at a loss! I cannot help you, but I will try my best. I have not seen you yet but I can hear a small still voice, screeching. I will go to the librarian and inquire.”

The librarian asked the same questions, and the guard was not able to answer. The librarian said, “Are you mad? How can I find that out in this immense library, where there are only index numbers and index numbers? At least the solar system must be known, then something can be done.”

The guard came back. He said, “It is very difficult, but the librarian is trying his hardest. It may take a few years for him to figure out from where you are coming.”

The poor bishop said, “A few years! I have been waiting here almost sixty years, or perhaps more, because all time sense is lost.”

The man said, “If you can get, in the coming sixty years, the right information about your planet, that will be very quick! You are not aware at all of the immensity of existence.”

He shouted so loudly that the bishop woke up. He was perspiring, trembling, and it was a cold night. And he had met only the guard; he had been only up to the gate, outside! ¹

Even our imagination of the world is merely a tiny fraction of what it actually is… With the recent death of a friend, I wanted to follow his path, as it were, and so I read the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan book that describes step by step what happens to us when we leave the body after death. Osho says it’s Tibet’s greatest contribution to the world.

It’s not a work of fiction, but was surely written by someone enlightened as a practical manual to support the deceased on their journey from this life to the next, helping them take the right steps day by day during the 49 days after leaving the body. And as I read it, I found myself experiencing it first-hand… as if it were my own journey at this very moment.

This has left a deep impression on me. I realised that we are dealing with enormous forces with which no compromises can be made. The whole of life is a vast world of infinite heights and abyssal depths, within which we are living as if in a tiny corner, in a minuscule comfort zone on the surface.

The entire Bardo maintains that when this life is over, it’s only a dream that has ended… one that lasted 70, 80, 90 years. And as we die, we realise this. Unfortunately, when we reincarnate into a new life a few days later, we forget, and go back to dreaming as if it were all real and as if it were the first time.

It seems that reality – somewhat as the bishop in the little story discovered – is immense and something else entirely from our ideas, and we’re like little ants, full of limitations, at the mercy of powerful energies.

So? Is there no hope?

Fortunately, there is! And it’s called awareness. From what I’ve understood: if we’ve cultivated it and let it grow even before having to reckon with the Bardo, then first of all we’ve lived our life at a higher level. And then, after death, if awareness has taken sufficient root – if it wasn’t some small, superficial thing – the Bardo says that at every step we have a real opportunity of choosing a higher life next time.

But we have to go through the process now… awakening awareness, disidentifying from the mind – at death the mind shatters into a thousand pieces – and, as a consequence, letting go of the ego, which is what makes us small and limited. This is the path Osho keeps speaking about, in every possible nuance.

A person has boundaries, limits… Only a person who has died as an ego and has resurrected only as a pure being, a presence, has no boundaries…

He can also give you a world without boundaries. And naturally, you will love such a presence more than you can love any person.

A person is a very small thing.

A presence is a vast sky full of stars. ²