Transcript [EN]: "The Only Way to Escape the Reincarnation Cycle (The Great Death)" | Osho

My beloved ones, I welcome you. I welcome you to this moment of silence, to this moment of sharing, to this moment of being together in the search for truth. You are here because a question has arisen in your heart. It is the most significant question a human being can ask. It is not just a question. It is a matter of life and death. Most of you are living your lives as if death is never going to happen. You keep it pushed away far away into the dark corners of your mind. You build walls of security, walls of money, walls of relationships just to hide from this one ultimate fact. But hiding does not change the reality. The fact remains, the shadow remains. And because you are hiding from it, because you are not facing it, your life becomes a trembling, a deep anxiety. You may not call it fear of death. You may call it stress. You may call it worry. You may call it insecurity. But deep down it is the fear of annihilation. You have asked a question that shows you are ready to look into the eyes of the lion. You have asked is it possible to die consciously? Is it possible to die consciously without being enlightened? This question is very significant. It implies that you have heard somewhere that death is not necessarily the end that death can be a transformation. But you are looking for a bargain. You are asking can I do it without the hard work? Can I do it without enlightenment? I have to be very hard on you. I have to be very clear because compassion does not mean consoling you with lies. Compassion means cutting you with the truth even if it hurts. Existence follows certain laws. Existence is not a chaos. It is a cosmos. It has a rhythm. It has a logic. It has a strict discipline. You can see it in the rising of the sun. You can see it in the movement of the stars. You can see it in the changing of the seasons. Everything moves according to a law. What in the east we call dharma. And there are no exceptions. You cannot bribe existence. You cannot pray for a special favor. You cannot say I have been a very good man. I have donated to the poor. I have gone to the church every Sunday. So please let me die consciously. Existence does not understand your social morality. It understands only one language, the language of consciousness. If one wants to die consciously, the only way is to be enlightened. There is no back door. There is no shortcut. And I want you to understand why this is so. Why is nature so strict? Why is it required to be enlightened just to keep your eyes open when death knocks on your door? To understand this, you have to understand what you have been doing with your life. You have been in this body for 70 years or perhaps 80 years. It is a long time. It is not just a temporary stay. You have become the house. You have forgotten that you are the guest. You have identified yourself so totally with the body that you do not know where the body ends and you begin. You say I am hungry when it is only the stomach that is hungry. You say I am ill when it is only the mechanism that is malfunctioning. You say I am old when it is only the biological clock that is winding down. This identification is deep. It is glued to your being. Your soul has become involved with the body and the mind. It is an entanglement. It is like the roots of a tree going deep into the earth, wrapping around the rocks, holding on tight. Now imagine what death is. Death is such a great surgery. I use the word surgery deliberately. You know what surgery is? If you have a small problem, an appendix that needs to be removed, a tonsil that needs to be taken out, you go to a surgeon. And what is the first thing the surgeon does? He does not just take a knife and start cutting. That would be barbarous. That would be torture. The pain would be so intense, so unbearable that your system would collapse from the shock alone. So for even a small operation you need anesthesia. Medical science has developed anesthesia out of compassion. They put you to sleep. They make you unconscious so they can cut your body. They can remove the sick part. They can stitch you back up and you will not know anything about it. You will sleep and when you wake up the operation is over. Now consider death. Death is the greatest operation in existence. It is not just removing a part of the body. It is removing you from the body. It is the total separation. Your soul is being taken apart from the body and mind. The connection that you have nurtured for 80 years. The connection that you think is your very life. That connection is being severed. The biology is being left behind and the consciousness is being pulled out. If you are awake during this process, the pain of separation will be infinite. It will be the greatest anguish you can imagine. It is the tearing apart of your very identity. And existence is not cruel. Nature is not your enemy. Nature is your mother. Nature feels for you. Nature knows that you are not ready. You are childish. You are immature. You are clinging to your toys. The body is your toy. The mind is your toy. And you are holding them so tight with such a grip that if they are snatched away forcibly while you are looking, you will go insane. So what does nature do? Unconsciousness is nothing but nature's way of giving you anesthesia. It happens naturally. You must have observed or perhaps you have heard that just before a person dies, they slip into a coma. They lose their senses. The eyes may be open but they do not see. The ears may be there but they do not hear. The mind begins to dissolve. A great fog descends upon their being. This fog is the anesthesia. It is a chemical process. As the elements of the body begin to disintegrate, the consciousness is clouded over. You fall into a deep dark sleep. You do not know when the breath stops. You do not know when the heart stops. You simply fade away into the blackness. This is how almost everyone dies. in a coma in unconsciousness. And because you die in unconsciousness, you do not see the door that opens at that moment. You miss the transition unless you are completely unidentified with body and mind. You cannot die consciously. This is the key. Unidentified. What does it mean? It means that while you are alive, fully alive, vibrant, healthy, you have come to a realization, not a belief. Mind you, beliefs are useless. You can believe I am not the body a thousand times a day. But when you hit your thumb with a hammer, the eye screams. The belief evaporates. I am talking about an experience, a deep meditative experience where you can sit silently and see the body as an object. Just as you see the furniture in your room, you see your own body. You see the hand moving and you know I am the watcher of the hand. You feel the thought arising in the mind and you know I am the watcher of the thought. If you can create this distance, if you can create this gap between you and your biology, then and only then can you die consciously. Because if you are already separate, if you have already broken the identification, then when death comes, it has nothing to cut. The surgery is no longer a surgery. You have already put down the cup. It does not need to be snatched from your hand. But for the ordinary man, the man of the world, this separation has not happened. He is clinging. And because he is clinging, nature forces him to sleep. And I say to you, a death which is not conscious is a great opportunity missed. It is the greatest opportunity missed. Because death is not just an end. It is a crescendo. It is the peak of your life. It is the moment when the bird is released from the cage. If the bird is asleep when the cage is opened, it will not fly. It will stay in the cage dreaming that it is still imprisoned. And by the time it wakes up, it will be in another cage, a new womb, a new body, a new prison. This is the wheel of samsara. This is the cycle of birth and death. You fall asleep in one life. You wake up in a new cradle crying and the whole tragedy begins again. The same school, the same struggle for survival, the same search for love, the same heartbreak, the same old age, and the same unconscious death. Are you not tired? Look at your life. Is it not a repetition? Have you not done the same things life after life? You have been a king. You have been a beggar. You have been a husband. You have been a wife. You have been a killer. You have been a saint. You have done it all. And yet you are empty. Yet the bowl of your being is begging for more. Why? Because you have been missing the exit. The exit is death. But the door of the exit only opens for those who are awake. So enlightenment is an absolute necessity. Do not be scared of this word. The priests have made it very scary. They have put it on a high pedestal. So high that you think it is not for me. It is for Buddha. It is for Jesus. It is for Krishna. I am just an ordinary man. This is the greatest conspiracy against you. Enlightenment is not for the special ones. Enlightenment is your birthright. It is your very nature. It is simply waking up to the reality of who you are. Enlightenment only means that your whole being is conscious. There are no dark corners left inside you. Imagine a house that has been closed for years. The windows are shut. The curtains are drawn. Inside it is dark. There are cobwebs. There are scorpions. There are snakes hiding in the shadows. You are afraid to go in. You live on the porch. You live on the outside. This is how you live your life on the periphery. You never go into your own center because it is dark there. You are afraid of your own loneliness. You are afraid of your own emptiness. So you keep the radio on. You keep the television on. You keep the phone in your hand. anything to avoid looking inside. Enlightenment is simply bringing a lamp into the house. You take a small candle of awareness and you enter. And the moment the light enters, the darkness disappears. The darkness cannot fight with the light. It has no power. It simply vanishes. And with the darkness, the snakes and the scorpions, your anger, your greed, your jealousy, your fear, they all disappear. They can only live in the dark. When your whole house is full of light. When you are luminous from the inside, then death cannot threaten you. Why? Because light cannot die. Darkness is death. Light is life. Dying in such consciousness a miracle happens. The body is taken away. The mind is taken away. The brain stops functioning. But you, the light, the witness, you remain. The body, the mind, the brain can be taken away from you because you know now not just as a theory but as your authentic experience that you have always been separate. authentic experience. And I want to emphasize this. Do not rely on scriptures. Do not rely on what I am saying. Unless it becomes your experience, it is worthless. You must taste it. You must taste your own separateness. This is what meditation is all about. Meditation is nothing but a rehearsal for death. Every day when you sit for meditation, what are you doing? You are voluntarily withdrawing your energy from the world. You are withdrawing your energy from the body. You are saying to the legs, "Relax, I am not you." You are saying to the heart, "Beat, but I am just the listener." You are saying to the mind, "Chatter, but I am not involved." Layer by layer, you peel the onion. And finally you arrive at the center the nothingness the silence. If you can find this silence while you are living then the involvement with the body is broken. It is broken today. It is broken now. And once the involvement is broken you are free. You are walking in the world but you are not of the world. You are living in the body but you are not the body. You are a ghost in the machine. And when the machine stops, which is what death is, just the machine stopping, you are not affected. You simply step out. It is as simple as stepping out of your old clothes. But if you are not enlightened, if you are still thinking you are the clothes, oh my friends, the suffering is immense. You will cling to the rags. You will cry, "This is me. Don't take me away." And in that screaming, in that panic, your consciousness will collapse. You will fall into the black hole. I am inviting you to a different destiny. I am inviting you to a death that is a celebration. But before we can celebrate, we must do the work. The work of waking up. I want to pause here for a moment. I want you to feel the gravity of what we are discussing. This is not entertainment. This is not something to listen to while you are doing your laundry and then forget. This is about your soul. I ask you, are you ready to do the work? Are you ready to light the lamp? If you are feeling this call, if you are feeling a stirring in your heart that says, "Yes, I have been asleep long enough, then I ask you to make a commitment right now in this digital space. Let us create a vibration of awareness. Press the like button on this video. Not for the algorithm. Forget the algorithm. But as a signal to the universe, a signal that says, "I am awake. I am listening. Subscribe to this channel. Join this community of seekers." We are a small band of travelers walking against the wind. It is good to hold hands. It is good to remind each other because the world will try to put you back to sleep. The world is a lullaby. You need friends who will shake you and say, "Wake up. Let this subscription be your vow. A vow to truth. A vow to consciousness." Now we have understood the problem. Unconsciousness is the anesthesia. We have understood the solution. Enlightenment is the only way to stay awake. But what happens when you die consciously? What is the experience? Why do the Buddhists call it the great death? And what is the ultimate reward of this courage? There is a secret that has been guarded for thousands of years. A secret about your immortality. A secret about where you go when you leave this form. In the second part of this discourse, I am going to take you beyond the threshold. I am going to show you the map of the other side. I am going to explain to you why a conscious death is the end of all suffering, the end of all birth, the end of all limitations. But you must be ready. You must be open. Sit silently for a moment. Watch your breath. Feel the life throbbing in you. This life is not yours. It belongs to the whole. Prepare yourself. We are about to cross the bridge. I am glad you are still here. I am glad you have not run away from the fire because now we are going to enter the very center of the flame. In the first part we talked about the surgery. We talked about how nature out of compassion makes you unconscious because you are too attached to your toys. You are too attached to this bag of bones and blood. But now we must speak of the possibility of remaining awake. We must speak of the treasure that awaits those who have the courage to keep their eyes open when the sun sets. In the ancient scriptures of the Buddhists, enlightenment is called the great death. Listen to the words. Taste them. The great death. Usually you are afraid of the word death. You avoid it. You change the subject. If someone talks about death at the dinner table, you say, "Please let us talk about something cheerful." But here the awakened ones, the Buddhas are not avoiding it. They are celebrating it. They are adding the word great to it. Mahaparin Nirvana. Why is it called the great death? Not that you are going to die but the death is great because you will be able to see it happening. You will be a witness. This is the secret. This is the magic key. Witnessing. Ordinary death is small. It is petty. It is just a changing of the clothes. You have done it a million times. You were an amoeba. You died. You were a fish. You died. You were a monkey. You died. You have died so many times that if you could see a pile of all your past bodies, it would be higher than Mount Everest. And yet you have learned nothing. You are still trembling. You are still shivering. Why? Because in all those millions of deaths, you were asleep. You were comeosse. You missed the point. The great death is different. The great death happens only once. It does not happen again. It is the death of death itself. When you die consciously, you are standing there alert, aware, luminous. You see the breath leaving. You see the pulse stopping. You see the body growing cold. But you are not worried. In fact, you are laughing. You are laughing because you can see for the first time that the body was just a shell. It was just a house you lived in. And now you are moving out. Now you are no longer attached to the body. No clinging. And you have become aware of your immortality. This awareness of immortality is not a belief. I want to burn this into your heart. Belief is garbage. Do not believe me. Do not believe the scriptures. Belief is just a cover up for your ignorance. You believe because you do not know. If you know, you do not need to believe. Do you believe in the sun? No, you see it. Do you believe you have two hands? No, you know it. You can die consciously only when you know that you are immortal. You must know it. You must taste it. And where will you taste it? Not in the books, not in the universities. You will taste it in the silence of your own being. When you go deep into meditation, what happens? The body is far away. The mind is silent. And suddenly there is a presence. A presence that has no name, no form, no age. It is not a child. It is not old. It is just pure throbbing isness. That you belong to eternity, not to time. This is the realization. You are not part of the clock. The clock is a mechanism invented by man to measure change. But you, you are the changeless that deep within you is the beginning of existence and the end of existence. If there is any beginning or if there is any end. Mind always thinks in terms of beginnings and ends. You think when was I born? When will I die? These are questions of the mind. The mind cannot conceive of eternity. The mind is a small mechanism. It cannot hold the infinite. But I tell you in fact there is no beginning and no end. You have always been here and you will always be here. You have always been here. Before the earth was formed, you were here as energy, as consciousness, as potential. When the sun burns out and the stars fade away, you will be here. You are the fabric of the universe itself. You are not a stranger. You are not an accident. You are the very foundation of existence. Once this clicks and it happens in a split second like a lightning flash, fear evaporates. How can you be afraid of losing something when you are everything? How can you be afraid of death when you know you are life itself? And this my friends brings us to the most beautiful the most profound implication of a conscious death. A conscious death is one of the miracles of life because after that you will not be born again in any form as a man, as a bird, as a tree. This is the ultimate freedom, moka, liberation. You will not be born again. I know some of you may be thinking, "But Osho, I like life. I want to be born again. I want to fall in love again. I want to eat delicious food again. I want to succeed." That is why you are here. That desire, that clinging, that unfinished business is the very magnet that pulls you back into the womb. You are not here because of God's punishment. You are not here because of karma. You are here because you wanted to be here. You are here because you are still hungry. You have been eating for millions of lives, but you are not satisfied. You have been loving for millions of lives, but you are not fulfilled. You are like a beggar with a hole in his bowl. You keep pouring and it keeps leaking. Rebirth is the result of your own stupidity. It is the result of your own desire to repeat the same old circle. But the man of meditation, the man of awareness, he looks at the circle and he says enough. He sees the futility of it. He sees that pleasure brings pain, that success brings failure, that youth brings old age. He sees the duality. He sees the trap. And in that seeing the desire drops, the hunger disappears. He is contented. He is fulfilled. And when you die in that state of total fulfillment without any desire to return, without any clinging to the past, then the miracle happens. The chain is broken. The wheel stops. Where do you go? This is the question the mind asks. If I am not born again, where will I go? Will I sit on a cloud and play a harp? No. That is a childish idea of heaven. You will remain in the eternal consciousness of the universe spread all over the ocean. You become the ocean right now. You are like a dew drop hanging on a blade of grass in the morning sun. You are beautiful, but you are small. You are fragile. A little wind comes and you tremble. The sun becomes hot and you are afraid of evaporating. You are trying to hold on to your dew dropness. You are saying I am a special dew drop. I am separate from other dew drops. This is the ego. A conscious death is the moment when the dew drop slips from the blade of grass into the ocean. Does the dew drop die? No. It becomes the ocean. It loses its boundaries, but it gains the infinite. It is no longer a drop. It is the water itself. Hence, it has been called the great death. It is the death of the ego and the birth of the divine. It is the death of the limitation and the birth of the limitless. You will be in the fragrance of the flowers. You will be in the flow of the rivers. You will be in the silence of the stars. You will be everywhere. You will be the very heartbeat of the cosmos. Is this not worth striving for? Is this not worth risking everything for? But I must warn you, the mind is very cunning. The mind will say, "Okay, Osho, this sounds beautiful. I will do it. But maybe later, let me enjoy the world a little bit more. I will become enlightened on my deathbed. Do not fool yourself. But there are no exceptions. Existence is very fair. It does not play favorites. It does not care if you are a pope or a politician or a celebrity. Existence follows absolutely definite laws. It is a science. It is the physics of the soul. If you jump off a cliff, gravity will pull you down. Gravity does not care if you are a good person or a bad person. It is a law. Similarly, this is a law of the highest order because it concerns your consciousness, your life, your death. The law is simple. Whatever you are doing in your life becomes your death. If you are living in greed, you will die in greed. If you are living in anger, you will die in anger. If you are living in unconsciousness, you will die in unconsciousness. And if you die in unconsciousness, you will be pulled back into the womb of unconsciousness. You will be born again, crying, screaming, forgetting everything. The slate will be wiped clean and you will have to start from ABC again. How many times do you want to repeat the first grade? My friends, the time is now. The transcript I read to you, the words of the master, they are not just words. They are arrows. They are meant to pierce your heart. Enlightenment is an absolute necessity. Do not postpone it. Postponement is the greatest sin. Tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow is the drug you take to avoid the reality of today. You have to start the work of dying now. And how do you do that? How do you practice the great death while you are still alive? By becoming a witness. Whatever you are doing, do it with full awareness. When you are walking, know that the body is walking. When you are eating, know that the body is eating. When you are thinking, know that the mind is thinking. Keep yourself separate. Keep a distance. If you can maintain this distance, a day comes, it comes suddenly without warning when the gestalt flips. Suddenly you are not the body. You are the vast sky in which the body is just a small cloud. That day you are enlightened. That day you have conquered death. And then when the actual physical death comes 5 years later, 10 years later, it does not matter. You will welcome it. You will embrace it like a long lost friend. You will dance into it because you know that the cage is opening and the eagle is about to fly across the sun. I want you to close your eyes for a moment, just for a second. Feel the life inside you. Feel the silence. This silence is what will survive. This silence is what you are. Do not let the world distract you. The world is a carnival. Noisy, colorful, but ultimately empty. Your reality is within. If this message has touched you, if it has shaken you even a little bit, then I have done my work. But your work is just beginning. I want you to make a commitment to this channel. Not because I need numbers, but because you need a reminder. Subscribe. Press that bell icon. Let every video be a hammer blow to your sleep. We are here to wake you up. We are here to disturb your comfortable sleep. And share this. Do not be stingy. If you have found a diamond, share it. Share this video with everyone you know because everyone is going to die. Everyone is facing this great surgery. Give them the key to anesthesiaree surgery. Give them the key to the great death. Write down in the comments below. Let your words be your witness. Write I am ready for the great death or write I am the witness. Let this be your mantra. The ocean is calling you. The river is flowing towards the sea. Do not hold on to the banks. Let go. Let go. And you will find that in letting go you have found everything. My blessings are with you. My love is with you. But you have to walk the path. Start walking today now. Okay.