Art of Dying

A man who has lived unconsciously his whole life, his death is going to be the culmination of unconsciousness; he will die in unconsciousness. In death also he will not be able to disillusion himself. And the person who dies in unconsciousness is born again in unconsciousness. It is a vicious circle; it goes on and on. And the person who is born in unconsciousness will repeat the same stupidities that he has been repeating for millions of lives.

Unless you become alert and aware in life, unless you change the quality of your living, you will not die consciously. And only a conscious death can bring you to a conscious birth; and then a far more conscious life opens its doors.

There is no death. Death is the greatest illusion there is, the greatest myth -- a lie. For even a single moment, if you can see that you are deathless, then no meditation is needed. Then live that experience, then act out of that experience, and the doors of eternal life are open for you.

To die with death is possible only if you have met death before you die. Otherwise it will be difficult. You need some acquaintance. If death comes and you are not acquainted with it, it will be difficult for you to surrender.

That is what meditation is all about: meeting death before you die; making a few acquaintances, a few encounters with death, so you start loving the beauty of it, so you start falling in love with it, so you can see the divine face even in death. Only a meditator can die without fighting, otherwise fight is unconscious. It is not that you will fight; you will find yourself fighting, and it will be almost impossible for you not to fight. Resistance is unconscious, it is built in.

Meditate or love, because these are the two ways to be acquainted with death. If you love, it is a small death. If you love very deeply, it is a great death. If you are really in love, you are no more the same as you were before. Something has disappeared; you are reborn. Love is a rebirth. So, many times in life, through meditation and love, you should become acquainted with death so that when death really comes you know the guest so well that you are not afraid. You can welcome the guest; you can receive the guest with great love, with great rejoicing, celebration.

For example, in the East it has been known for centuries that a man of meditation can see if somebody is going to die within six months or not. And the thing is so simple that it need not be even a question of meditation; you yourself can know whether you are going to die within six months or not. The day you stop seeing the tip of your nose, that means only six months are left -- because at the time a person dies, his eyes turn up, and they start turning up six months before that, very slowly, very slowly. From six months beforehand till his death, he cannot see the tip of his nose. Now, that is known to villagers who have no meditation or meditative understanding.

It rarely happens that somebody dies consciously. It happens only to great meditators, who know well the path death will be coming on because in their meditations they have traveled on the path again and again -- it is the same path. As they go deep in their meditation the body is left far away, mind is left far away, the heart is left far away; only a beautiful silence -- fully alert and conscious -- remains.

The same happens when you die. If you have been meditating, then death is not a new experience. You will be surprised that in your meditation you have been dying every day, and you have been coming back to life every day. Such a person dies very consciously, so he knows what death is -- and such a person remains conscious in the mother's womb. He is also born consciously. From his very first moment on the earth, he knows all that has passed before in the past life, and he remembers it.

And if you can make all these days a celebration, your death will be found to be a fiction. These days of celebration and meditation and silence and joy and love will create in you the capacity to die consciously. And one who dies consciously knows that death is nothing but changing the house. And it is always for a better house because life always goes upwards; it is an evolutionary process.

Meditation and death happening together is the best that can happen to anybody, because he is dying yet he is aware that he will be dead for you all, but not for himself. He will simply be freed from this body. And because he has died with awareness, he will not be born again. He will be free, a white cloud in the vast universe.

Life is not the end, it is just a discipline to learn the art of dying. But you are afraid, you are scared, at the very word death you start trembling. That means you have not yet known life, because life never dies. Life cannot die.

Somewhere you have become identified with the body, with the mechanism. The mechanism is to die, the mechanism cannot be eternal, because the mechanism depends on many things; it is a conditioned phenomenon. Awareness is unconditional, it doesn't depend on anything. It can float like a cloud in the sky, it has no roots, it is not caused, it is never born so it can never die.

Whenever someone dies you have to be meditative near them, because a temple is just near and it is holy ground. Don't be childish, don't bring curiosities, be silent so you can watch and see. Something very very meaningful is happening -- don't miss the moment. And when death is there, why ask about it? Why not look at it? Why not watch it? Why not move with it a few steps?

Osho says meditation as the art of dying …

Because I know your ego will like it very much if I called it the art of growing. The art of dying comes like a shock.

Let me tell you an anecdote.

I know you would like it to be called the art of growing. Then your ego would feel perfectly good. 'So it is a question of growth; so I am going to remain and grow.' That's what the ego always wants.

I have knowingly called it the art of dying. Meditation is the art of dying. Then your ego will be shocked.

And it is also truer to cal I it the art of dying, because you r ego is not going to grow, your ego is going to die in meditation. These are the only two possibilities: either your ego goes on growing more, it becomes stronger, or, it disappears. If your ego goes on growing and becomes more and more strong, you are getting more and more into the mud. You are getting more and more into fetters, you are getting more and more into the imprisonment of it. You will be suffocated. Your whole life will become a hell.

The growth of the ego is a canceric growth. It is like cancer, it kills you. Meditation is not growth of the ego, it is death of the ego.

Death

"… When we love a person he becomes part of our being. That's exactly what love is: becoming parts of each other, becoming members of each other. So when a person dies, a part of you dies with him. It is not simply a suicide of [him]; it is a partial death of [you] too. He has taken a part of you, the part that he has put inside you, that had become involved with you; he has taken that away. Now there is a blank, a hole; it hurts.

If death is natural then one can accept it; because what could poor [man] have done? One can forgive a natural death, mm? because he would have simply died; what could he have done about it? But he has committed suicide: he has done it to you. He has taken part of your being, he has destroyed you partially. He has not only committed suicide: he has murdered you. Just see that murdered part, and then there is rage.

And the third thing: when you love a person, death reveals the fact that you never loved enough. You could have loved but now there is no opportunity. And you never loved enough; nobody ever loves enough. That hurts and creates guilt, that now there is no possibility even to ask his forgiveness, to say, 'I never loved you as I should have. I wasted time, I never hugged you totally, I never held your hand. While the time was there I never sang a song to you. You must have been longing for it, you must have been hungry for it. And who knows? -- if I had loved you, you may not have committed the suicide.' These problems are implied in it: 'Who knows? -- if I had loved the man, he may not have committed suicide?" (Osho- Believing the impossible)