The first question:
Osho,
Buddha said, “If you want to see, see at once. Don't let the mind enter into it.” Can you tell us more about “seeing”?
Seeing is a state of no-mind, a state of no-thought, a state of pure awareness. You simply reflect that which is without any interference, any judgment, any like or dislike; when you don’t say a thing about it, you just function like a mirror.
That’s why Buddha says, “If you want to see, see at once,” because if you start thinking you have already missed. Seeing at once means, don’t bring the mind in. Mind brings time, it brings the future and the past. Mind starts comparing whether it is right or wrong. It compares with the old prejudices – with the Gita, the Koran, the Bible, and with all your conditionings. Or it starts projecting itself into the future, into the world of desires: “If I believe in this, what am I going to attain? What will be the achievement?” The moment the mind comes in, it brings the whole world of the past and the future. Suddenly you are in a turmoil. Memories are there, desires are there, and that which was said to you is lost in the turmoil, in the noise.
Buddha says: “See it, right now. Not even a single moment’s thinking. Thinking means missing.”
Hence this has been Buddha’s constant practice: that whenever a new seeker came to him asking questions, inquiring about truth, God, the afterlife, he would always say: “Wait, don’t be in a hurry. Just sit by my side for at least two years not asking anything. If you really want to be answered, forget all your questions for two years. If you don’t want to be answered, I am ready to answer right now. But you are not ready to listen. Your very question is coming out of an inner insanity. There are a thousand and one questions inside asking for attention. While I am answering your question you will be preparing a new question to be asked; you won’t be listening to me. So if you really want to be answered, wait for two years. Sit silently by my side not asking, simply watching what is happening here.
“Much will transpire in these two years, you will see many people flowering. You will see all kinds of people coming to me; the curious ones who come empty-handed and go empty-handed; the real seekers who come empty-handed but never go empty-handed – they stay, they remain with me till they are fulfilled. You will see the slow ones who take a very long, long time, a gradual process. You will see the quick ones, the intelligent ones who understand immediately. Simply watch. Walk with me from one village to another; sit with me under this tree and that tree; imbibe my spirit, feel my silence; look into my eyes, watch the way I walk, watch the way I sit. Simply watch for two years and forget all your questions, don’t formulate any questions. And after two years, if you can fulfill this condition, you will be allowed to ask and I will answer you. I promise you that whatever the question is, it will be solved; whatever your thirst is, it will be quenched.”

A great philosopher, Maulingaputta came to him. Of course, he was asking great philosophical questions. Buddha listened – he was very famous, he was well-known all over the country. He had not come alone, he had come with five hundred of his own disciples. They were sitting behind him. Buddha listened patiently. For one hour he was asking this question and that question – some very complicated, some complex, some subtle. Then he said, “I have asked so many questions, but you have not answered.”
Buddha said, “My way of answering is that you will have to wait for two years with me. These are the questions that you have asked many people. Have you or haven’t you asked them of other people before asking me?”
Maulingaputta said, “That’s true. I have asked Mahavira and he immediately answered. I have asked Sanjay Vilethiputta” – he was another famous teacher of those days – “and he immediately answered. I have asked Ajit Keshkambal” – he was a very skeptical philosopher – “and he was very, very interested in my questions. And I have asked so many others. We have been traveling all over the country.”
Buddha said, “You have asked so many people and they have all answered, but have you got the answers? If you have got the answers, why waste my time?”
Maulingaputta said, “They have answered, but I have not got the answers yet. My questions remain the same – untouched. Their answers have not satisfied me.”
Buddha said, “I can also answer right now as they have answered – it will not satisfy you either. Now you have to decide. If you really are interested, risk two years of your time and sit silently by my side.”
Maulingaputta waited for two years, but before he said, “Yes, I am ready to wait,” one of Buddha’s great disciples, Manjushree, started laughing. Maulingaputta asked, “Why is this man laughing like mad?”
Buddha said, “He is not mad – he is the first of my disciples to become enlightened. I know why he is laughing – you can ask him yourself.”
Maulingaputta asked Manjushree, “Why are you laughing?”
Manjushree replied, “I am laughing because this Gautam Buddha is tricky. He tricked me the same way. Listening to what he is saying to you, I remembered my own journey to him. Twenty years have passed; suddenly I remembered – I had completely forgotten – that these were my questions too. It is as if history is repeating itself. It is strange because I came with five hundred disciples of my own, just as you have. I also asked Buddha and the same reply was given to me: ‘Wait for two years.’ I waited for two years, and I am laughing. I would like to say this to you as a warning: if you want to ask this man anything, ask right now because after the two years you will not ask him and he will not answer.”
Buddha said, “I will be ready to answer, but if you refuse to ask, what can I do? My promise will stand – I am a man of my word.”
And the story happened as Manjushree had predicted. Two years passed – Maulingaputta had completely forgotten, because who remembers time when one is with a man like Buddha?
You remember time only when you are miserable; when you are blissful, time is forgotten. Time depends… If you are very miserable, one hour appears as if many days have passed. If you are blissful, many days appear as if just a few moments have passed. If you are totally blissful time stops, time disappears, evaporates; there is no time anymore. You simply live beyond time.
Two years passed. Maulingaputta had forgotten, but Buddha reminded him. Suddenly one day he said, “Maulingaputta, two years have passed. It is now time that you should ask your questions. I am ready to answer.”
Maulingaputta laughed. Buddha said, “You are laughing like mad. What has happened? Do you remember Manjushree’s laughter that day?”
Maulingaputta said, “My questions have fallen. I have nothing to ask. I have become utterly silent. You have not answered and yet you have answered.”

This is the true answer. The real master kills your questions in such a subtle way that you never become aware of it; without any bloodshed he goes on destroying your questions. Slowly, slowly, by and by, you become aware of the absurdity of all your questions. Slowly, slowly you become aware of the utter mystery of life. Life is not a problem and it cannot be reduced to questions; there is no answer for it. It is a mystery, unanswerable, insoluble. You have to live it, you have to taste it, you have to experience it. It is experienced in silence.
Hence meditation contains all the answers because meditation is the art of getting beyond the mind. Once the mind has gone with all its chattering, you are able to see; seeing happens. Seeing is transformation. When you see that which is, your whole life is transformed. You cannot live now against existence; it is impossible. You start living in harmony with existence.
Knowing, seeing, how can you go against the ultimate law of life? Nobody is so foolish. You go against it because you are not aware of it. When you are aware of it, you simply become a harmonious part of it; you fall into the organic unity of existence, you disappear as an ego – the dewdrop disappears into the ocean and becomes the ocean. That is fulfillment; that is contentment; that is the ultimate bliss, nirvana.

The second question:
Osho,
I have four specialties: I sleep very deeply in your discourse; I eat lots of chocolate and ice cream; I am a German girl and I am fooling around with an Indian swami. Can I get enlightened?
Sleep is very helpful. Enlightenment is very close to sleep. Patanjali has exactly defined samadhi as sleep with only one little difference: that it is conscious sleep. The body sleeps, the mind sleeps, but something far more deep in you remains awake – at the very center of your being, a flame of awareness. So deep sleep is nothing to be worried about; deep sleep – that is very good. These discourses are meant for that. Just keep a little alert deep inside. If you don’t listen to my discourse, don’t worry about it; just remain a little alert inside. If my discourse can help you to fall into a deep sleep, at least something is happening. You are on the right track. Just a little deeper…
If you eat lots of chocolate and ice cream it’s perfectly good because you may not be coming again, so be finished with it. Eat as much chocolate and ice cream as you want because on the farther shore there is no ice cream, no chocolate – and I am telling you from my experience. Do you know how miserable I feel? Now I repent – why didn’t I eat chocolate and ice cream and all kinds of things? But when I was as asleep as you are, Deeksha was not around!
There is no need to worry that you are a German girl. If you had been a Californian girl, there would be trouble. Germans are one-pointed people; they go like arrows, direct to the point; they don’t go zigzag. That is not their way. Once they have decided something, they follow it to the very end – whatever happens. They don’t look here and there, they don’t look backward. That’s why I have such a soft spot for German people. That’s perfectly okay. Just Californians are in difficulty.

A Californian bumper sticker: Warning. I Brake For Hallucinations.

As far as enlightenment is concerned, one has to beware only of hallucinations because one can hallucinate that one has become enlightened. Many Californians are hallucinating. Now there are as many enlightened people in California as there have ever been anywhere in the world. In the whole history of humanity there have not been so many enlightened people as you will find everywhere in California. Almost in every house you will find enlightened people. Anybody can hallucinate. So I am perfectly happy that you are a German girl.
The only problem is that you are fooling around with an Indian swami. I have to ask you two questions. Is this Indian swami by any chance called Paramahansa Muktananda? Then avoid this fellow! He is trying to hide his name, remember it. He is not telling people his name. Now everybody is inquiring about him, “Who is this Paramahansa Muktananda?” Fooling around is okay, but avoid this fellow because with him there is no possibility of enlightenment at all. I have known people who have become enlightened and just by being with this man they have become unenlightened again.
How will you recognize him? – he goes on laughing like Jimmy Carter. So you have to watch that. And now because I am saying it, he may try to hide even that. So watch him during the night when he sleeps because then he completely forgets, naturally. He has the face, the same diplomatic face, the same stupid face as Jimmy Carter.

Mrs. Carter went for a checkup at the dentist’s.
“How is the mouth?” asked the dentist.
“Ah, he is away playing golf this weekend,” she replied.

Otherwise everything is going well. If you can be aware of this Paramahansa Muktananda, then all is perfectly okay with you. I can guarantee your enlightenment.

The third question:
Osho,
I took sannyas for the wrong reasons, not from the heart. I had thought, “As I'm fucked up anyway, I might as well try sannyas.” But the very day after darshan everything changed. Now I feel you in my heart stronger and stronger. Wearing the mala is no longer a sacrifice but a grace and a pleasure. Even some old problems just disappeared. How could the wrong moment prove to be the right one?
You are not aware of your own heart, that’s all. You were thinking that it was not coming from your heart – it must have come from your heart, otherwise what has happened would have been impossible. Many people are not aware of their hearts for the simple reason that our whole society, culture, education, condition us to bypass the heart; they want us to reach the head as quickly as possible. They try to find a shortcut and the heart is left by the side. Your energies become completely oblivious to the fact that there is a heart beating inside you. The physiologists go on saying to you that your heart is nothing but a part of your physiology. Yes, they are right. The heart has two aspects: its outer aspect is part of physiology, its inner aspect is part of your spirituality. The physiologists are concerned only with the outer aspect, but the inner goes on working. Even though you are not aware of it, it works continuously in you. It goes on influencing your life in many ways.
That’s why many times you feel something has happened which you never wanted to happen. You fall in love with a woman; your mind says, “It is simply madness. What am I doing?” It seems so irrational – it does not appeal to your mind and your reason. Still, something deeper than the mind is pulling you. You cannot resist it. You fall in love in spite of all your rationality, your mind, your scientific training, your thinking. And the mind goes on saying, “What foolishness are you doing? This is not right. You should not do it.” It can find a thousand and one excuses not to do it. But something far more powerful, far more intrinsic, far deeper is working, and the mind feels almost impotent. And the mind is very clever, it never accepts its defeat; it says, “Okay, let’s try.”
That’s what has happened with you. Your mind says to you, “As I’m fucked up anyway, I might as well try sannyas.” Something deep was stirred, but the mind won’t accept it because it does not want to accept that there is anything deeper than it. It won’t accept its defeat.

I have heard something about Mulla Nasruddin. He was riding very fast on his donkey; the donkey was almost running. The people asked, “Nasruddin, where are you going?” He was passing through the marketplace.
He said, “Don’t ask me, ask the donkey.”
They said, “This is strange!”
Nasruddin said, “There is nothing strange about it. This donkey is so stubborn that whenever I try to direct him he gives me such a fight – he won’t go that way. So when I am alone on the road I beat him and I direct him to the place where I want to go, but in a marketplace people gather around and start laughing at me: ‘Your own donkey and you are not the master of it!’ And the more he sees the crowd, the more stubborn he becomes. So I have learned one lesson: that when passing through the marketplace I simply go wherever he is going. Outside the town I will see to the fool, but in the marketplace I allow him to lead me. That at least gives a false impression to the whole town that I am the master.”

That’s the way of the mind.

Mulla Nasruddin was saying to his son, “Sit silently, don’t make a noise!”
But the son was not listening. The more he was telling him to sit silently, not to make a noise and obey his father, the more rebellious the child was becoming.
Finally Nasruddin said, “Okay, now disobey me and let me see how you can disobey this order! Disobey me – this is my order. And now let me see how you can disobey me.”

This is the strategy of the mind; the mind knows. First it tries to overpower the heart; if it cannot, then it says to itself, “Let us try – what is wrong with it? We have tried so many things.”
But something deep down, of which you are not clearly aware, was pulling you into sannyas. It is a magnetic force. Certainly you are in it in spite of your mind, but not in spite of your heart, otherwise what has happened would not have happened at all.
You say: “But the very day after darshan everything changed.” That shows that the heart bloomed, flowered. For the first time something of the heart has been heard. For the first time you have given it a chance. For the first time you have listened to love rather than logic. For the first time you have been a little poetic rather than just a thinker. For the first time you have put aside all your arithmetic and you have taken a jump into something mysterious, incalculable. For the first time you have not been calculative.
You say: “Now I feel you in my heart stronger and stronger.” The seed must have been there, but you cannot see the seed. When it starts sprouting, you can see it. When leaves start coming out of the soil, it becomes visible. But without the seed the leaves cannot come. Now you are seeing the leaves; retrospectively they are proof enough that there must have been a seed. You were unaware of it; now those leaves are making you aware of it.
“Wearing the mala is no longer a sacrifice but a grace and a pleasure.” Not only leaves, but buds and small flowers are on the way. “Even some old problems just disappeared.” That’s the miracle of the heart; the heart simply helps to get rid of those problems that the mind cannot solve. The mind goes on and on moving in circles. The heart simply takes a jump out of those circles, and suddenly has transcended those problems which have always tortured you. Suddenly you see that they are irrelevant: there is no need to solve them. There is no need even to bother about them; they are not your concern and they don’t belong to you. It is as if a person has come out of sleep, and the problems that he was facing in his dreams evaporate and are suddenly no longer relevant. That’s what has happened.
Now you say: “Even some old problems just disappeared. How could the wrong moment prove to be the right one?” It simply proves it was not the wrong moment; it was the right moment, but you were just not aware of it. Now you are aware of it.
Now move consciously deeper into it. If unconsciously so much has happened – if just by groping in the dark so much has happened – if you start moving consciously, the possibility of your growth is immense, and great is the hope. Greater flowers are waiting. The spring has come, you have seen the first blossoms; now soon all the trees will be blossoming. Your whole being will become a fragrance.
But drop that idea that you have moved out of a wrong decision. It was not wrong. Your mind was thinking that it was wrong, but your heart knew far better. The heart always knows better than the mind.

The fourth question:
Osho,
What do you say to a mind which goes on thinking in four different languages: Persian, English, French, German?
Whether you speak one language or one dozen languages makes no difference – it is the same mind. All those languages will be speaking the same mind. If a madman speaks Persian, do you think it will be different when he speaks English, French or German? A madman is a madman – in any language he will be mad.
An enlightened person is an enlightened person; in any language he will be enlightened. Whether he speaks or not, he remains the same. Of course, four languages will make it a little more complicated, but the basic problem is the same. Your mind is one, your mind’s disease is one. You can express that disease in four languages, that’s all; only the expression will be different, the root can’t be different.

When Johnny Fuckerfaster went to school one day, the teacher decided to review the alphabet. She said her students, “I’ll name a letter of the alphabet and you tell me a word that begins with that letter. We’ll start with A.”
Johnny Fuckerfaster raised his hand shouting, “I know, I know!”
The teacher knew Johnny had a dirty mind and thought to herself, “He’ll say ‘asshole’ and embarrass the class.” So she called on another student who answered, “Apple.” The teacher called out the letter B and again Johnny raised his hand furiously and yelled, “Please, me, call on me, I know!” The teacher imagined he would say “bastard,” so she asked another child for the answer. He replied, “Boy.” The teacher continued through the alphabet until she got to the letter R. By this time Johnny was jumping up and down in his seat and making such a commotion she could no longer avoid him. “What dirty word could he possibly make with R?” she thought. None came to mind so she called on Johnny.
“Rat…” he said.
The teacher breathed an enormous sigh of relief, smiled and said, “Very good, Johnny!”
Then Johnny added, “…and it had a fucking tail that long and took a shit on the floor!”

You can’t avoid your mind; it will find its way. Any language will do – four languages or forty languages. Yes, it is a little more complicated, but mind is capable, so capable that one staggers to think of its potential.
The people who understand, who have worked on the inner mechanism of the mind, say that a single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world; its capacity is almost infinite. But if you are a fool, even if you know all that is written, even if you become a walking Encyclopedia Britannica, it won’t make much difference. You will remain a fool. Of course, your foolishness will now be a little more decorated. That’s what scholars are: decorated fools with great degrees, certificates, diplomas. They can pretend that they know – and they can pretend more logically than anybody else because they are well informed – but deep down there is just the same darkness, the same unconscious.
You say: “What do you say to a mind which goes on thinking in four different languages?” It is the same – thinking is the same, the disease is the same. The remedy is not different; meditation can help you to get rid of one language, it can help you to get rid of four languages or four hundred languages. Meditation gets you into a space where mind is left behind with all its knowledge. Suddenly you start functioning from a state of not-knowing, from innocence. That innocence is beautiful and that innocence is fragrant. That innocence is the essential religion.

The fifth question:
Osho,
Why am I so very afraid of death?
One is afraid of death because one is unaware of what life is. If you know what life is, the fear of death disappears of its own accord. The question is not of death at all, the question is of life – because we don’t know what life is, hence we are afraid that it is going to end one day. We have not even lived. How can you live without knowing what it is? You have neither lived nor loved; you have simply been dragging, vegetating. You know that one thing is certain: death is coming closer every day, every moment, hence the fear. The fear is natural because death will close the door forever. And without ever knowing what life was, you will be taken away. You were given an opportunity, a great opportunity, and you missed it.
You go on postponing for tomorrow. You say, “Tomorrow I am going to live.” But simultaneously, side by side, there is a fear; you know, “Tomorrow, who knows? Tomorrow maybe death will come, then what?” You have postponed life for tomorrow and there is no more tomorrow – then what? Fear arises. You don’t know how to live right now. Nobody tells you how to live right now.
The preachers, the politicians, the parents, they tell you about the tomorrows. When you are a child they say to you, “When you are a young man, you will know what life is.” When you are a young man they say, “You are young fools – youth is foolishness. When you are old, you will understand.” When you are old they say, “You are finished. Now there is nothing left. You are like a used cartridge.” This is a strange world!

In my childhood, as it happens in every child’s life, I used to ask all the available elders thousands of questions. It almost became a torture for them because my questions were embarrassing. So the easiest way was: “You are too young. Wait.”
One of my father’s friends was known throughout the town as a sage. I used to go to him with my father, I used to torture him the most. And he would always say, “Wait. You are too young and your questions are too complicated. When you are a little more grown-up, you will be able to understand.”
I asked him, “Please give me in writing what year I will be grown up. Then I will ask you these questions. Because this is a tricky thing. Whenever I ask – I have been asking for at least five years – you always say the same thing: ‘When you grow up…’ You can go on saying this to me again and again! Just write it down on paper and sign it.”
I saw his hand was shaking. I said, “Why is your hand shaking? Why are you afraid? If you know what age a person becomes able to understand, write it down. If you say at twenty, I will ask at twenty-one – I will give you one more year.”
So he wrote, “Twenty-one years.”
So I said, “Okay, I will come only after I am twenty-two.”
He must have thought, “At least the problem is solved for the time being. Who knows? After he is twenty-two…?” I must have been nearabout fourteen at that time.
When I became exactly twenty-two I arrived. I arrived with a crowd – I had gathered many people together. I said, “Come with me,” I had his signed letter with me. I said to him, “This is your letter. Now answer.”
He said, “You are such a nuisance! Why have you gathered all these people together?”
I replied, “Just to witness that you have been cheating me. And not only have you been cheating me, this has been going on all over the world. Every elderly person is cheating young people, telling them ‘Tomorrow’ – and tomorrow never comes. Now I am twenty-two years old and you have written twenty-one. I have given you one more year just in case I am not intelligent enough and I take a little longer time to grow up. But now I am not going to leave, I will be here. I want all my questions answered.”
He said, “To tell you the truth, I don’t know anything. Please don’t ask me again. Forgive me. You are right, I have been lying to you.”
“Why did you lie to a child?” I asked him. “How could you lie to a child who was asking out of such innocence, who trusted you? – and you deceived him! You don’t know whether God exists or not, and you were telling me that God exists and that I would be able to understand later on. I knew that very moment that even you didn’t understand. You don’t know anything about God, you are just repeating like a parrot.”

But this is the situation; teachers don’t know, professors don’t know, priests don’t know. Without knowing, they go on pretending that they know. The whole strategy consists of a single trick: go on postponing. “You will also know when the time is ripe.” Of course it is never ripe, you never grow up. By the time you are old enough you have to save your own face, so you start saying the same things to your children.
If you love your children, if you love your younger brothers and sisters, never tell them lies. Your whole religion consists of lies. Be truthful, tell them, “I don’t know and I am searching.” Don’t postpone it for tomorrow. Our whole life is a postponement, hence the fear of death: “I have not known yet and death is coming.”
It is not you alone who is afraid of death. You ask: “Why am I so very afraid of death?” Everybody is afraid of death for the simple reason that we have not tasted of life yet. The man who knows what life is, is never afraid of death; he welcomes death. Whenever death comes he hugs death, he embraces death, he welcomes death; he receives death as a guest. To the man who has not known what life is, death is an enemy. To the man who knows what life is, death is the ultimate crescendo of life.
But everybody is afraid of death and that too is contagious. Your parents are afraid of death, your neighbors are afraid of death. Small children get infected by this constant fear all around them. Everybody is afraid of death. People don’t even want to talk about death.
There have been only two taboos in the world: sex and death. It is very strange why sex and death have both been the two taboos not to be talked about, to be avoided. They are deeply connected. Sex represents life because all life arises out of sex, and death represents the end. Both have been taboo – don’t talk about sex and don’t talk about death.
There have been only two types of cultures in the world. One category consists of the cultures for whom sex is taboo. They can talk about death, in fact, they talk about death too much. For example, in India, listen to the mahatmas, to the saints, and you will find it. Nobody talks about sex, everybody talks about death – to frighten you, to create fear in you. Out of fear you can be enslaved; out of fear you can be forced to be religious; out of fear you can be forced to bow down to some stupid idea of God, to some stupid idol of God. People are worshipping anything.
Just put a stone in front of your house, paint it red and just wait on the side and watch. Within an hour somebody is going to pass and bow down to it, thinking it is Hanumanaji. Somebody else will come and put two flowers there and somebody else will follow with a coconut. This is the beginning of a temple. Soon you will find that a temple has arisen.
People are so afraid, they are ready to bow down to any nonsense, to any stupidity. We call religious people “god-fearing.” In fact, a religious person is never god-fearing; he is god-loving certainly, but never god-fearing. Fear has no place in a religious man’s life. Love and only love… And where love exists, fear disappears; where fear exists, love has no possibility to grow.
In a society like India, death is not taboo. Indian scriptures are full of very detailed descriptions of death. They describe with gusto how ugly death is. You will be surprised at these people, they describe your body in such ugly, disgusting ways. Why are they so interested, so obsessed with all that is disgusting and nauseating? – for the simple reason that they want you to become so afraid, so antagonistic, so negative to life… By talking about death, by making it as big and as dark as possible and by depicting death in all the ugliest colors, they destroy your love for life, your affirmation of life.
Then there are societies… For example, for centuries Christianity has been a society, a culture against sex; sex is the taboo. “Don’t talk about sex.” Hence the idea – a sheer nonsense idea – that Jesus is born of a virgin mother. They have to create this fiction because how can Jesus, a man of such purity, come out of sexuality? Such purity coming out of such impurity? Impossible, illogical! A lotus coming out of mud? Impossible! But, in fact, all lotuses come out of mud.
Jesus is born as naturally as you are – he is not a freak. He is not abnormal. And this whole nonsense about the Holy Ghost, that the Holy Ghost makes Mary pregnant… Now ghosts are making love!
Hamid guards near my room. He stands there just outside the curtain with a big staff. One day I asked, “Hamid, have you seen the Holy Ghost or not?”
He said, “Holy Ghost?”
“Yes,” I said, “someday he will come, so be alert – because if the Holy Ghost does not come to visit me, where will he go?”
One day Rajen was standing there and I said to him, “Keep your staff in your hand, otherwise the Holy Ghost may use it against you. Rather than this staff being a protection, he will hit your head with your own staff.”
Since then he has left his staff somewhere; I don’t see it anymore. Maybe afraid… Sometimes you are not so attentive, and keeping your staff in your hand the whole time… Sometimes one has to relax too. Even guards have to go to sleep. And the Holy Ghost comes and finds the staff and hits him on the head. If the Holy Ghost can make a woman pregnant, what can he not do? He can do anything – he can even make a man pregnant! Anything is possible, with the Holy Ghost nothing is impossible.
Sex is a taboo for Christianity: “Don’t talk about sex!” Now, after Sigmund Freud, the first taboo is broken. Sex is no longer a taboo. We have shifted to another taboo; death has become the taboo. Now don’t talk about death. It seems as if man needs some taboo or other. Victorian society was a society rooted in the taboo of sex. Now the modern society, Western society, is rooted in the taboo of death. Don’t talk about death at all, forget all about death as if it does not happen – at least it does not happen to you; at least it has not happened to you up to now. So why bother about it? Forget all about it.
When a man dies in the West, there are experts to decorate him. He may never have looked so beautiful as he looks after death – painted and his cheeks so red as if he has just come from a three months vacation in Florida. And so healthy, as if he has just been exercising and is now doing shavasan – the death posture; not really dead. The pretension has to be created that he is not dead. Even on the gravestone it is written: “He is not dead, he is only asleep.”
In all the languages, whenever somebody dies, nobody says that he is simply dead. We say, “He has gone to God. He has become beloved of God. God has chosen and called him. He has gone to the other world. He has become heavenly.”

One man was saying to another, his friend, “My wife is just divine.”
The other replied, “But my wife is still alive.”

You talk about people’s divinity, etcetera, when they are dead.

There was a great conflict between Voltaire and Rousseau; for the whole of their lives they were quarreling. Voltaire died. Somebody informed Rousseau that Voltaire had died. He said, “Really? He was a great man – provided that he is really dead.” If he is not dead then he will withdraw his words. Alive, they are enemies; dead, “He was a great man.” So he makes a condition: provided that he is really dead, he was a great man.

Once a man dies, nobody speaks against him, nobody says anything against him. Suddenly he becomes a saint, suddenly great. His place will never be filled again, his place will always remain empty. The world will always miss him. He was so essential. And nobody had taken any notice of him while he was alive. These are tricks – tricks to keep death away, to shut the doors and to forget all about death.
A real humanity will not have any taboos: no taboo about sex, no taboo about death. Life should be lived in its totality; death is part of life. One should live totally and one should die totally.
That’s my message to my sannyasins.
You ask: “Why am I so very afraid of death?”– because you are not yet living totally. Live totally and the fear of death will disappear. You are not alone. Everybody is in the same boat.

It was a typical British Men’s Club: pipe smoke hanging in the air, thick leather chairs, carved oak panels.
The old retired colonel was recounting his daring exploits in Africa. “Nearly lost me life to a black-maned lion once!”
“Oh, really, sir?” said a young officer, feigning interest. “Do tell about it.”
“Well, fella me lad, there I was striding through the thickest part of the Congo jungle with my faithful gun-bearer, Umbogo, when across a small clearing I saw the biggest lion you have ever seen. Cool as a cucumber sandwich, I took my trusty rifle from Umbogo, took aim, and pulled the trigger. ‘Click’ – the damn thing was a dud. Unperturbed, I handed back the dud and took a second rifle. ‘Click’ – another dud. By this time Umbogo had gone and I thought I had better get going, too. I ran as fast as I could, but in no time the beast was close behind. I could feel his breath down the back of my neck and I knew he was about to pounce. But just as he was about to, he slipped. This gave me my chance and I ran as fast as I could. But he was soon there again – his breath down the back of my neck, about to pounce, and again he slipped. This happened three times. The third time I managed to get into the jolly old Land Rover and get away.”
“How amazing, sir,” said the young officer. “I am sure that if that had been me I would have messed my pants.”
“Messed your pants?” bellowed the old colonel. “What do you think the lion was slipping on?”

The sixth question:
Osho,
What do you do for exercise?
I just tell a few really good jokes to myself and then laugh loudly and roll on the ground. I know no other better exercise. You can ask Vivek – once in a while she catches me rolling on the ground.
Just the other day I was telling myself these jokes:

Richard Nixon was suspicious of some of the politicians surrounding him, thinking there was a conspiracy developing against him.
So he gathered together his closest aides and they went to a small village somewhere in the Alps to investigate the problem.
On the second morning Nixon opened the blinds of his bedroom window, and there in the snow someone had pissed: “Nixon is an asshole.” Disturbed by this, Nixon set his smartest forensic scientists to work to find the culprit.
After forty-eight hours they reported back to him. ‘We have bad news,” they said. “We’ve analyzed the urine and found that it came from Henry Kissinger.”
“Oh no!” said Nixon.
“But there is even worse news to come, sir. We’ve also discovered it is Mrs. Nixon’s handwriting.”

Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, a Catholic priest and a hippie were riding in a small airplane when the landing gear fell off.
The panic stricken pilot rushed out of the cockpit. “I’m sorry, boys, this plane’s not going to make it. There are only four parachutes and as I’m the captain I get one.”
He grabbed a parachute and jumped out.
Richard Nixon stood up and said, “I’m the President; the nation needs me – sorry, gentlemen…” He grabbed a parachute and jumped.
Henry Kissinger jumped up shouting, “I’m the smartest man in the world! The world cannot afford such a sacrifice!” He grabbed a parachute and jumped out.
The priest spoke next: “My son, you are still young – take the last one.”
“Don’t worry, father,” the hippie said. “There is a parachute for each of us – ‘the smartest man in the world’ just grabbed my backpack and jumped with it.”

The last question:
Osho,
Are there really any coincidences?
While he is unconscious, man lives only in coincidences; his life consists of only coincidences and nothing else. The unconscious life is an accidental life.
Only the conscious man goes beyond the accidental and enters into the intrinsic. The conscious man transcends coincidences. Without being totally conscious you are a victim of all kinds of unknown forces that surround you. You don’t know why things are happening to you, why you have done this and why not that; why you have chosen this and why not that.

When I passed my matriculation and went to university I wanted to fill in my form, but I had no fountain pen with me. So I asked the next student who was filling in his form, “Will you be kind enough to give me your fountain pen so that I can fill in my form?”
He was very happy and willing. He said, “First you fill in your form.”
I filled in my form and asked, “Why did you want me to fill in my form first?”
He said, “Because I cannot decide what subjects to take.” He looked at my form and whatever subjects I had taken, he filled in the same subjects.
I said, “Are you mad or something?”
He replied, “It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same to me. Whether I read philosophy, politics or economics, it is all the same to me. I had to copy somebody’s form; you are as good as anybody.” He continued, “In fact, I have been passing all my examinations by copying other people’s answers. I don’t know how I have passed the matriculation.”
Now this man is a professor of philosophy. What will you call it? Just a coincidence, accidental. I might have been just a few minutes late that day and he would have never been a professor of philosophy. I may have had a fountain pen; he would have never been a professor of philosophy. He may have copied from somebody else and then he would have been a professor of politics or economics or who knows what.
A Jewish novelist writes…

My father was traveling in a train; the train was late. It arrived in the middle of the night somewhere in Russia. He was hungry and cold; it was a cold Russian night, snow was falling. He rushed to find out whether he could get some coffee or something hot to drink.
The woman who owned the restaurant was just closing. He pleaded, he said, “Just five minutes. Give me two cups of coffee – I am tired and I am hungry. If you can give me something to eat I will be grateful.”
The woman opened the door again – she was just going to lock up – poured coffee and gave him something to eat. Naturally, they started talking and the woman asked from where he had come – the usual conversation with a stranger. “And where are you going to stay?” The woman continued, “It is good that you arrived at this moment because now the taxis have all left – the train was so late. And we were not hoping – nobody ever gets down from this train. So please come in my car and I will drive you wherever you want.”
The man said, “I don’t know where to go. Can you recommend me a good hotel?”
The woman replied, “There are hotels, but no good ones. And they will all be closed. It will be better if you come with me and rest at my place. In the morning you can find a hotel.”
The man, of course, very gratefully agreed. And this is how the story begins. They fall in love… And then you can develop the whole story yourself.
Now this Jewish novelist says: If the train had not been late I would not have been born at all. If the train was a little later I would have missed again, I would not have been born. If the woman had been a little hardhearted and had refused to open the restaurant again, I would not have been born at all. If the woman had left my father at a hotel, the story would have ended then and there. But he stayed with the woman; the woman was a widow. In the morning she invited him for breakfast, and one thing led to another.

This is how ordinary life is. Unconscious man lives in coincidences; he is accidental.
Vidhan has written to me: “Osho, I would like you to know that sometimes meditation can be very dangerous. I was doing a visualization technique, imagining I was a tree. I was imagining what kind of roots I had; what color and texture I was; which kind of leaves I had, and there I was swaying in the breeze… When suddenly a dog came trotting along and pissed on my leg.”

Now Vidhan thinks the dog knows that he is visualizing, that he is thinking he is a tree. The dog must have been as mad as you are, otherwise dogs don’t get so easily deceived – very difficult to deceive dogs.
It is said that after three months when Columbus saw leaves, green leaves floating in the ocean, he was tremendously happy. But his biographers say that was nothing and that you should have seen his dog. He was jumping! For three months… Think of the dog, poor dog – no tree. That is celibacy. If the dog were an Indian he would have been a mahatma.

A black man, an Arab and a Jew are walking together in the desert. Suddenly a horrible witch appears in front of them, riding a dragon. As they beg for their lives, the witch softens.
“Okay,” she says, “if the length of your pricks, added together, measures exactly one meter, I’ll spare your lives.”
The black man takes his prick out – seventy-five centimeters. The Arab measures his prick – twenty-four and a half centimeters. With trembling hands, the Jew takes off his trousers and what a relief – exactly half a centimeter. As they happily part from the witch, the black brags, “Ah, you are lucky you had a black with you – seventy-five centimeters!”
“Nonsense,” says the Arab. “It was my prick, the gift of Allah, that saved us.”
“That’s what you think.” says the Jew. “What would have happened if she hadn’t turned me on?”

Enough for today.

---