Death is even closer to us than our shadow We become free from that which we have known. We also triumph over that which we have known. Our failure and defeat are only because of our ignorance. Defeat is because of darkness; when there is light, defeat is impossible -- light itself will bring triumph. The first thing I would like to tell you about death is that there is no bigger lie than death. And yet, death appears to be true. It not only appears to be true but even seems like the cardinal truth of life -- it appears as if the whole of life is surrounded by death. Whether we forget about it, or become oblivious to it, everywhere death remains close to us. Death is even closer to us than our shadow. We have even structured our lives out of our fear of death. The fear of death has created society, the nation, family and friends. The fear of death has caused us to chase money and has made us ambitious of higher positions. And the biggest surprise is that our gods and our temples have also been raised out of the fear of death. Afraid of death, there are people who pray on their knees. Afraid of death, there are people who pray to God with folded hands raised towards the sky. And nothing is more false than death. That is why whatever system of life we have created, believing death to be true, has become false. How do we know the falsity of death? How can we know there is no death? Until we know that, our fear of death will not go. Until we know the falsity of death, our lives will also remain false. As long as there is fear of death, there cannot be authentic life. As long as we tremble with the fear of death, we cannot summon the capacity to live our lives. Only those can live for whom the shadow of death has disappeared forever. How can a frightened and trembling mind live? And when death seems to be approaching every second, how is it possible to live? How can we live? No matter to what extent we may remain oblivious to death, it is never really forgotten. It makes no difference if we put the cemetery outside the town -- death still shows its face. Every day someone or other dies; every day death occurs somewhere, and it shakes the very foundation of our lives. Whenever we see death happening, we become aware of our own death. When we cry over somebodys death, it is not just for that persons death alone, but also for the hint we get of our own. Our suffering from pain and sorrow is not only over someone elses death but also over the apparent possibility of our own. The occurrence of every death is, at the same time, our own death. And so long as we remain surrounded by death, how can we live? Like that, living is impossible. Like that, we cannot know what life is -- neither its joy, nor its beauty, nor its benediction. Like that, we cannot reach the temple of God, the supreme truth of life. The temples which have been created out of the fear of death are not the temples of God. The prayers which have been composed out of the fear of death are not prayers to God either. Only one who is filled with the joy of life reaches the temple of God. Gods kingdom is filled with joy and beauty, and the bells of Gods temple ring only for those who are free from all kinds of fears, for those who have become fearless. Because we like to live in fear this seems difficult. But this is not possible -- only one of the two things can be right. Remember, if life is true then death cannot be true -- and if death is true then life will be nothing but a dream, a lie; then life cannot be true. These two things cannot exist simultaneously. But we hold on to both together. There is the feeling that we are alive and there is also the feeling that we are dead. I have heard about a fakir who lived in a faraway valley. Many people would go to him with questions. Once a man came and asked him to explain something about life and death. The fakir said, You are welcome to know about life; my doors are open. But if you want to know about death then go somewhere else, because I have never died nor will I ever die. I have no experience of death. If you want to know about death men ask those who have died, ask those who are already dead. Then the fakir laughed and he said, But how will you ask those who are already dead? And if you ask me to give you the address of a dead person, I cannot do it. Because ever since I have come to know that I cannot die, I have also come to know that no one dies, that no one has ever died. But how can we believe this fakir? Every day we see someone dying; every day death happens. Death is the supreme truth; it makes itself apparent by penetrating the center of our being. You may shut your eyes, but no matter how far away it is from you, it still remains apparent. No matter how much we escape from it, run away from it, it still surrounds us. How can you falsify this truth? Some people do, of course, try to falsify it. Just because of their fear of death people believe in the immortality of the soul -- just out of fear. They dont know; they simply believe. Every morning, sitting in a temple or a mosque, some people repeat, No one dies; the soul is immortal. They are wrong in believing that just by repeating this, the soul will become immortal. They are under the impression that death can be falsified by repeating, The soul is immortal. Death never becomes false by such reiterations -- only by knowing death can it be falsified. This is very strange, remember: we always accept the opposite of what we go on repeating. When someone says he is immortal, that the soul is immortal -- when he repeats this he is simply indicating that he knows, deep down, he will die, he will have to die. If he knows he will not die then there is no need to go on about immortality; only one who is frightened keeps on repeating it. And you will see that people are more scared of death in those countries, in those societies which talk the most about the immortality of the soul. This country of ours talks untiringly about the immortality of the soul, and yet is there anyone on earth more scared of death than us? There is no one more afraid of death than us! How can we reconcile these two? Is it ever possible for people who believe in the immortality of the soul to become slaves? They would rather die; they would be ready to die because they know there is no death. Those who know that life is eternal, that the soul is immortal, would be the first to land on the moon! They would be the first to climb Mount Everest! They would be the first to explore the depths of the Pacific Ocean! But no, we are not among those. We neither climb the peak of Everest nor land on the moon nor explore the depths of the Indian Ocean -- and we are the people who believe in the immortality of the soul! In fact, we are so scared of death, that out of the fear of it we go on repeating, The soul is immortal. And we are under the illusion that perhaps by repeating it, it will become true. Nothing becomes true by repetition. Death cannot be denied by repeating that death does not exist. Death will have to be known, it will have to be encountered, it will have to be lived. You will have to become acquainted with it. Instead, we keep running away from death. How can we see it? We close our eyes when we see death. When a funeral passes by on the road, a mother shuts her child behind closed doors and says, Dont go out; someone has died. The cremation ground is put outside the town so it rarely meets your eyes, so that death wont be there, right in front of you. And if you ever mention death to somebody, he will forbid you to talk about it. Once I stayed with a sannyasin. Every day he would talk about the immortality of the soul. I asked him, Do you ever realize that you are coming closer to death? He said, Dont say such ominous things. It is not good to talk about such things. I said, If, on the one hand, a person says that the soul is immortal, but also he finds it ominous to talk about death, then this fouls up the whole thing. He shouldnt see any fear, any omen, anything wrong in talking about death -- because for him there is no death. He said, Although the soul is immortal, I nevertheless do not wish to talk about death at all. One should not talk about such meaningless and threatening things. We are all doing the same thing -- turning our backs on death and escaping from it. I have heard: Once a man went mad in a village. It was a hot afternoon and the man was walking along a lonely road all alone. He was walking rather fast, trying not to be scared: it is possible to be scared when someone is already there, but how can anyone be scared when there is no one around? But we do feel scared when there is no one around. In fact, we are afraid of ourselves, and when we are alone the fear is even greater. There is no one we fear more than ourselves. We are less afraid when accompanied by someone and more afraid when left all by ourselves. That man was alone. He became scared and began running. Everything was still and quiet -- it was afternoon; there was no one around. As he began to run faster, he sensed the sound of running feet coming from behind. He grew frightened -- maybe someone was following him. Then, afraid, he glanced behind out of the corner of his eye. He saw a long shadow chasing him. It was his own shadow -- but seeing that some long shadow was pursuing him, he ran even faster. Then that man could never stop, because the faster he ran, the faster the shadow ran after him. Finally the man went mad. But there are people who even worship madmen. When people saw him running like that through their villages, they thought he was engaged in some great ascetic practice. Except in the darkness of night, when the shadow would disappear and he would think there was no one behind him, he never stopped. With daybreak he would start running again. Then he didnt even stop at night -- he figured that in spite of the distance he had covered during the day, while he rested at night the shadow had caught up with him and would follow him in the morning once again. So even at night he continued running. Then he went completely mad; he neither ate nor drank. Thousands of people watched him run and showered flowers upon him, or someone might hand him a piece of bread or some water. People began worshipping him more and more; thousands paid their respects to him. But the | man became more and more crazy, and finally one day, he fell down on the ground and died. The people of the village where he died made his grave under the shade of a tree, and they asked an old fakir of the village what they would inscribe on his gravestone. The fakir wrote one line on it. In some village, someplace, that grave is still there. It is possible you may pass it by it. Do read the line. The fakir wrote on the gravestone: Here rests a man who fled from his own shadow all his life, who wasted his whole life escaping from a shadow. And the man did not even know as much as his gravestone does -- because the gravestone is in the shade and does not run, hence no shadow is created. We also run. We may wonder how a man can run from his shadow, but we too run from shadows. And that which we run away from starts pursuing us itself. The faster we run, the faster it follows because it is our own shadow. Death is our own shadow. If we keep running away from it we will not be able to stand before it and recognize what it is. If that man had stopped and seen what was behind him, perhaps he would have laughed and said, What kind of a person am I, running away from a shadow? No one can ever escape from a shadow; no one can ever win a fight with a shadow. This does not mean, however, that the shadow is stronger than we are and that we can never be victorious; it simply means that there is no shadow, that there is no question of being victorious. You cannot win against that which does not exist. Thats why people keep facing defeat by death -- because death is merely a shadow of life. As life moves forward, its shadow moves along with it too. Death is the shadow that forms behind life, and we never want to look back, to see what it is. We have fallen, exhausted, so many times -- after having run this race again and again. It is not that you have come to this shore for the first time, you must have been here before -- maybe it was not this shore; then some other shore. It may not have been this body; then some other body -- but the race must have been the same. The legs must have been the same; the race must have been the same. Through many lives we live, carrying the fear of death, and yet we are neither able to recognize it nor to see it. We are so scared and frightened that when death approaches, when its total shadow closes in on us, out of fear we become unconscious. Generally, no one remains conscious at the moment of death. If, even once, one were to remain conscious, the fear of death would disappear forever. If, just once, a man could see what dying is like, what happens in death, then the next time he would have no fear of death because there would be no death. Not that he would be victorious over death -- we can achieve victory only over something which exists. Just by knowing death, it disappears. Then nothing remains over which to be victorious. We have died many times before, but whenever death has occurred we have become unconscious. This is similar to when a physician or a surgeon gives anesthesia before an operation so you wont feel the pain. We are so very afraid of dying that at the time of death we become unconscious willingly. We become unconscious just a little before dying. We die unconscious, and then we are reborn in a state of unconsciousness. We neither see death, nor do we see birth -- and hence we are never able to understand that life is eternal. Birth and death are nothing more than stopping places where we change clothes or horses. In olden times there were no railroads and people traveled in horse-drawn carriages. They traveled from one village to another, and when the horses grew tired they exchanged them for fresh horses at an inn, and they changed them again at the next village. However, the people changing the horses never felt that what they were doing was like dying and being born again, because when they changed horses they were fully conscious. Sometimes it used to happen that a horseman would travel after drinking. When he would look around in that state, it would make him wonder how everything had changed, how everything appeared so different. I have heard that once a drunk horseman even said, Could it be that I am changed too? This doesnt seem to be the same horse I was riding. Could it be that I have become a different man? Birth and death are simply stations where vehicles are changed -- where the old vehicles are left behind, where tired horses are abandoned and fresh ones are acquired. But both these acts take place in our state of unconsciousness. And one whose birth and death happens in this unconscious state cannot live a conscious life -- he functions in an almost half-conscious state, in an almost half-awakened state of life. What I wish to say is that it is essential to see death, to understand it, to recognize it. But this is possible only when we die; one can only see it while dying. Then what is the way now? And if one sees death only while dying, then there is no way to understand it -- because at the time of death one will be unconscious. Yes, there is a way now. We can go through an experiment of entering into death of our own free will. And may I say that meditation or samadhi is nothing else but that. The experience of entering death voluntarily is meditation, samadhi. The phenomenon that will automatically occur one day with the dropping of the body -- we can willingly make that happen by creating a distance, inside, between the self and the body. And so, by leaving the body from the inside, we can experience the event of death, we can experience the occurrence of death. We can experience death today, this evening -- because the occurrence of death simply means that our soul and our body will experience, in that journey, the same distinction between the two of them as when the vehicle is left behind and the traveler moves on ahead. I have heard that a man went to see a Mohammedan fakir, Sheikh Fareed, and said, We have heard that when Mansoors hands and legs were cut off he felt no pain... which is hard to believe. Even a thorn hurts when it pricks the foot. Wont it hurt if ones hands and legs are cut off? It seems that these are all fantastic stories. The man also said, We hear that when Jesus was hanged on the cross he did not feel any pain. And he was permitted to say his final prayers. What the bleeding, naked Jesus -- hanged on a cross, pierced with thorns, hands stuck with nails -- said in the final moments can hardly be believed! Jesus said, Forgive these people, they dont know what they are doing. You must have heard this sentence. And the people all over the world who believe in Christ repeat it continuously. The sentence is very simple. Jesus said, O, Lord, please forgive these people, because they know not what they are doing. Reading this sentence, people ordinarily understand Jesus is saying that the poor people didnt know they were killing a good man like him. No, that was not what Jesus meant. What Jesus meant was that These senseless people do not know that the person they are killing cannot die. Forgive them because they dont know what they are doing. They are doing something which is impossible -- they are committing the act of killing, which is impossible. The man said, It is hard to believe that a person about to be killed could show so much compassion. In fact, he will be filled with anger. Fareed gave a hearty laugh and said, You have raised a good question, but I will answer it later. First, do me a little favor. He picked up a coconut lying nearby, gave it to him and asked him to break it open, cautioning him not to break the kernel. But the coconut was unripe, so the man said, Pardon me, I cannot do this. The coconut is completely raw, and if I break open the shell the kernel will break too. Fareed asked him to put that coconut away. Then he gave him another coconut, one which was dry, and asked him to break that one open. Can you save the kernel of this one? he asked. And the man replied, Yes, the kernel can be saved. Fareed said, I have given you an answer. Did you understand? The man replied, I didnt understand anything. What relation is there between a coconut and your answer? What relation is there between the coconut and my question? Fareed said, Put this coconut away too. There is no need to break it or anything. I am pointing out to you that there is one raw coconut which still has the kernel and the shell joined together -- if you hit the shell, the kernel will also break. Then there is the dry coconut. Now how is the dry coconut different from the raw coconut? There is a slight difference: the kernel of the dry coconut has shrunk inside and become separated from the shell; a distance has occurred between the kernel and the shell. Now you say, even after breaking open the shell, the kernel can be saved. So I have answered your question! The man said, I still dont get it. The fakir said, Go, die and understand -- without that you cannot follow what I am saying. But even then you will not be able to follow me because at the time of death you will become unconscious. One day the kernel and the shell will be separated, but at that moment you will become unconscious. If you want to understand, then start learning now how to separate the kernel from the shell -- now, while you are alive. If the shell, the body, and the kernel, the consciousness, separate at this very instant, death is finished. With the creation of that distance, you come to know that the shell and the kernel are two separate things -- that you will continue to survive in spite of the breaking of the shell, that there is no question of you breaking, of you disappearing. In that state, even though death will occur, it cannot penetrate inside you -- it will occur outside you. It means only that which you are not will die. That which you are will survive. This is the very meaning of meditation or samadhi: learning how to separate the shell from the kernel. They can be separated because they are separate. They can be known separately because they are separate. Thats why I call meditation a voluntary entry into death. And the man who enters death willingly, encounters it and comes to know that, Death is there, and yet I am still here. Socrates was about to die. The final moments were approaching; the poison was being ground to kill him. He kept asking, It is getting late, how long will it take to grind the poison? His friends were crying and saying to him, Are you crazy? We want you to live a little longer. We have bribed the person who is grinding the poison; we have persuaded him to go slowly. Socrates went out and said to the man who was grinding the poison, You are taking too long. It seems you are not very skilled. Are you very new to this? Have you never ground it before? Have you never given poison to a condemned person? The man replied, I have been giving poison my whole life, but I have never seen a crazy man like you before. Why are you in so much of a hurry? I am grinding it slowly so that you may breathe a little more, live a little longer, remain in life a little more. You keep talking like a crazy man, saying it is getting late. Why are you in such a hurry to die? Socrates said, I am in a great hurry because I want to see death. I want to see what death is like. And I also want to see, even when death has happened, whether I survive or not. If I dont survive, then the whole affair is finished -- and if I do survive, then death is finished. In fact, I want to see who will die with death -- will death die or will I die? I want to see whether death will survive or whether I will survive. But how can I see this unless I am alive? Socrates was given the poison. His friends began to mourn; they were not in their right senses. And what was Socrates doing? He was telling them, The poison has reached up to my knees. Up to the knees my legs are totally dead -- I will not even know if you cut them off. But my friends, let me tell you, even though my legs are dead, I am still alive. This means one thing is certain -- I was not my legs. I am still here, I am totally here. Nothing within me has faded yet. Socrates continued, Now both my legs are gone; up to my thighs everything is finished. I wouldnt feel anything if you cut me right up to the thighs. But I am still here! And here are my friends who go on crying! Socrates is saying, Dont cry. Watch! Here is an opportunity for you: a man is dying and informing you that he is still alive. You may cut off my legs entirely -- even then I wont be dead, even then I will still remain. My hands are also drifting away; my hands will die too. Ah! How many times I identified myself with these hands -- the same hands that are leaving now -- but I am still here. And, like this, Socrates continues talking while dying. He says, Slowly, everything is becoming peaceful, everything is sinking, but I am still intact. After a while I may not be able to inform you, but dont let that make you think I am no more. Because, if I am still here, even after losing so much of my body, how then would an end come to me if a little more of the body is lost? I may not be able to inform you -- because that is only possible through the body -- but still I will remain. And at the very last moment he says, Now, perhaps I am telling you the final thing: my tongue is failing. I wont be able to speak a single word further, but still I am saying, I exist. Until the final moment of death he kept saying, I am still alive. In meditation, too, one has to enter slowly within. And gradually, one after another, things begin to drop away. A distance is created with each and every thing, and a moment arrives when it feels as if everything is lying far away at a distance. It will feel as if someone elses corpse is lying on the shore -- and yet you exist. The body is lying there and still you exist -- separate, totally distinct and different. Once we experience seeing death face-to-face while alive, we will never have anything to do with death again. Death will keep on coming, but then it will be just like a stopover -- it will be like changing clothes, it will be like when we take new horses and ride in new bodies and set out on a new journey, on new paths, into new worlds. But death will never be able to destroy us. This can only be known by encountering death. We will have to know it; we will have to pass through it. Because we are so very afraid of death, we are not even able to meditate. Many people come to me and say that they are unable to meditate. How shall I tell them that their real problem is something else? Their real problem is the fear of death... and meditation is a process of death. In a state of total meditation we reach the same point a dead man does. The only difference is that the dead man reaches there in an unconscious state, while we reach consciously. This is the only difference. The dead man has no knowledge of what happened, of how the shell broke open and the kernel survived. The meditative seeker knows that the shell and the kernel have become separate. The fear of death is the basic reason why people cannot go into meditation -- there is no other reason. Those who are afraid of death can never enter into samadhi. Samadhi is a voluntary invitation to death. An invitation is given to death: Come, I am ready to die. I want to know whether or not I will survive after death. And it is better that I know it consciously, because I wont be able to know anything if this event occurs in an unconscious state. So, the first thing I say to you is that as long as you keep running away from death you will continue to be defeated by it -- and the day you stand up and encounter death, that very day death will leave you, but you will remain. O S H O AND NOW AND HERE BY SPY
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 02:56:50 +0000
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