The Art of Living and Dying by Osho

Author:Osho
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Art of Living and Dying
ISBN: 9781780285313
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2016-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

3

Reponses to Questions

A recent visit to the doctor confronts me with the immediacy of my death. I’ve been told that I have two years to live, at the most. How can I respond through celebration, as you suggest?

Death is always there. You may be unaware of it but it is always confronting you with immediacy. You cannot be certain of the next moment. But we go on living and nobody believes that he is going to die; it is always the other who dies.

Each of your birthdays is an effort to forget that it is not your birthday, it is your death day; you have died one year more. But with flowers and candles and cakes one forgets the immediacy of death. It is always with you. Birth is the beginning of death.

So this news from the doctor in fact should not make you serious; on the contrary it should make you more alert and more aware, because you are a rare person for whom death is a certainty and you cannot deceive yourself anymore. Many who are not in your situation will be dying before you – but their death will be coming without their knowing. And to know is always better than not to know. Something can be done when you know a fact is going to happen.

You have been told that within two years you are going to die. This immediacy of death should wake you up. Now there is no more time for you to fool around and no time for you to deceive yourself. Death is just there waiting for you, and you are fortunate that you know it. Knowing of your death can become a transformation.

If you know you are going to die within two years, these two years can be devoted to meditation. Otherwise people are always postponing; they will meditate tomorrow – and tomorrow never comes. There are so many other things to do; you don’t have time for meditation. But a man who is fully aware that now there is no way, that tomorrow is finished, all that he has in his hands is this moment . . . This is the reality, whether you have a terminal illness or not, but knowing that you are going to die makes it very profoundly felt, and that can become a blessing in disguise. The time for meditation has come. Now you can forget those small, stupid things in which you were involved.

There are millions of people who are playing cards, watching football matches – not at all aware of what they are doing. If you ask them, they say they are killing time. Great! Time is killing you, and you remain with the idea that you are killing time. How can you kill time? You have never even seen it. Your swords cannot cut it, even your nuclear weapons are unable to touch it. How are you going to kill time? But time is killing you every moment.

Your situation should be understood as a great blessing.

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