| 
Death of Osho's grandfather, Nana
You are asking: What was that event that made you turn toward
the spiritual? What was that miracle?
There has been no such event. It happens many times that some
event occurs and a person takes a turn in life. It also happens
that as a result of the collective effect of many events, a person's
life is changed. In my life there has been no such event that
can be singled out as having caused such a change. However, there
have been many events whose collective impact may have caused
a turning point, but when this happened cannot be determined.
Furthermore, I do not think I ever "turned to the spiritual."
I was already in that direction. I do not remember any day when
I have not been thinking about the spiritual. From my very first
memories, I have been thinking about it.
Many events have occurred in which the collective effect is
to be considered. I remember no single event that is so outstanding.
Ordinarily, just one excuse sometimes diverts the mind suddenly.
However, I believe that the mind diverted toward something by
a single event can revert back also. But if the turning is the
collective result of many events, then there is no reverting back
because that turning is deeper and has entered into the many layers
of one's personality. Just as by a single push you can be forced
in a certain direction, so also can another push in the opposite
direction cause you to return back.
Again, turning by only a single push is a type of reaction.
It is possible, but you are not fully ready for it and you simply
become diverted. When the effect of that push vanishes, you can
return back. But if every moment of life slowly and steadily brings
you to a state where even you yourself are not able to decide
how you came there, then returning back out of reaction is not
possible - because then that condition becomes even part of
your breathing, so to speak.
However, one memory in my life which is worth remembering is
that of death. It is difficult to tell what I might have thought
on that day. My early childhood passed at the house of my maternal
grandparents and I had great love for them.... I came in touch
with my father and mother only after the death of my maternal
grandfather. His passing away and the manner in which it happened
became the first valuable memory for me because I had loved only
them and received love only from them. His passing away was very
strange. The village in which they were staying was about thirty-two
miles away from any town. Neither was there any doctor nor any
vaidya, one who practices ayurvedic medicine.
In the very first attack of death upon my grandfather, he lost
his speech. For twenty-four hours we waited in that village for
something to happen. However, there was no improvement. I remember
a struggle on his part in an attempt to say something, but he
could not speak. He wanted to tell something, but could not tell
it. Therefore, we had to take him toward the town of Gadarwara*
in a bullock cart. Slowly, one after the other, his senses were
giving way. He did not die all at once, but slowly and painfully.
First his speech stopped, then his hearing. Then he closed his
eyes as well. In the bullock cart, I was watching everything closely,
and there was a long distance of thirty-two miles to travel.
Whatsoever was happening seemed beyond my understanding then.
This was the first death witnessed by me, and I did not even understand
that he was dying. But slowly all his senses were giving way and
he became unconscious. While we were still near the town, he was
already half dead. His breathing still continued, but everything
else was lost. After that he did not resume consciousness, but
for three days he continued breathing. He died unconsciously.
This slow losing of his senses and his final dying became very
deeply engraved in my memory. It was he with whom I had my deepest
relationship. For me, he was the only love object, and because
of his death, perhaps, I have not been able to feel attached to
anyone else so much. Since then, I have been alone. known05
*Note: where Osho's parents lived
Separation has its own beauty, as does meeting. I don't see that
there is anything wrong with separation. Separation has its own
poetry; one just has to learn its language, and one has to live
it in its depth. Then out of sadness itself comes a new kind of
joy...which looks almost impossible, but it happens. I have
known it. That's what I was talking about this morning. I was
talking about the death of my Nana. It was a total separation.
We will not meet again, yet there was a beauty in it, and he made
it more beautiful by repeating the mantra. He made it more prayerful...it
became fragrant.
He was old and dying, perhaps from a severe heart attack. We
were not aware of it because the village had no doctor, not even
a pharmacist, no medicine. So we didn't know the cause of his
death, but I think it was a severe heart attack. I asked him in
his ear, "Nana, have you something to say to me before you
depart? Any last words? Or do you want to give me something to
remember you by forever?"
He took off his ring and put it in my hand. That ring is with
some sannyasin now; I gave it to someone. But that ring was always
a mystery. His whole life he would not allow anybody to see what
was in it, yet again and again he used to look into it. That ring
had a glass window on both sides that you could look through.
On top was a diamond; on each of its sides there was a glass window.
He had not allowed anybody to see what it was that he used to
look at through the window. Inside there was a statue of Mahavira,
the Jaina tirthankara; a really beautiful image, and very small.
It must have been a small picture of Mahavira inside, and those
two windows were magnifying glasses. They magnified it and it
looked really huge. It was of no use to me because, I am sorry
to say, even though I have tried my best I have never been able
to love Mahavira as much as I love Buddha, although they were
contemporaries....
I was telling you that my grandfather, before he died, gave
me his most cherished thing - a statue of Mahavira hidden
behind a diamond in a ring. With tears in his eyes he said, "I
don't have anything else to give you because all that I have will
be taken away from you too, just as it has been taken away from
me. I can only give you my love for the one who has known himself."
Although I did not keep his ring, I have fulfilled his desire.
I have known the one, and I have known it in myself. In a ring
what does it matter? But the poor old man, he loved his master,
Mahavira, and he gave his love to me. I respect his love for his
master, and for me. The last words on his lips were, "Don't
be worried, because I am not dying."
We all waited to see if he was going to say something else,
but that was all. His eyes closed and he was no more.
I still remember that silence. The bullock cart was passing
through a river bed. I exactly remember each detail. I didn't
say anything because I didn't want to disturb my grandmother.
She did not say a thing. A few moments passed, then I became a
little worried about her and said, "Say something; don't
be so quiet, it is unbearable."
Can you believe it, she sang a song! That's how I learned that
death has to be celebrated. She sang the same song she had sung
when she was in love with my grandfather for the first time. glimps06
I was telling you that my grandfather's death was my first encounter
with death. Yes, an encounter and something more; not just an
encounter, otherwise I would have missed the real meaning of it.
I saw the death, and something more that was not dying, that was
floating above it, escaping from the body...the elements.
That encounter determined my whole course of life. It gave me
a direction, or rather a dimension, that was not known to me before.
I had heard of other people's deaths, but only heard. I had
not seen, and even if I had seen, they did not mean anything to
me.
Unless you love someone and he then dies, you cannot really encounter
death. Let that be underlined:
Death can only be encountered in the death of the loved one.
When love plus death surrounds you, there is a transformation,
an immense mutation, as if a new being is born. You are never
the same again. But people do not love, and because they do not
love they can't experience death the way I experienced it. Without
love, death does not give you the keys to existence. With love,
it hands over to you the keys to all that is.
My first experience of death was not a simple encounter. It
was complex in many ways. The man I had loved was dying. I had
known him as my father. He had raised me with absolute freedom,
no inhibitions, no suppressions, and no commandments....
Love with freedom - if you have it, you are a king or a queen.
That is the real kingdom of God - love with freedom. Love
gives you the roots into the earth, and freedom gives you the
wings.
My grandfather gave me both. He gave his love to me, more than
he ever had given to either my mother or even my grandmother;
and he gave me freedom, which is the greatest gift. As he was
dying he gave me his ring, and with a tear in his eye told me,
"I don't have anything else to give you."
I said, "Nana, you have already given me the most precious
gift."
He opened his eyes and said, "What is that?"
I laughed and said, "Have you forgotten? You have given me
your love and you have given me freedom. I think no child ever
had such freedom as you gave to me. What more do I need? What
more can you give? I am thankful. You can die peacefully."
Since then I have seen many people die, but to die peacefully
is really difficult. I have only seen five people die peacefully:
the first was my grandfather; the second was my servant Bhoora;
the third was my Nani; the fourth, my father, and the fifth was
Vimalkirti*. glimps13
*Note: Vimalkirti became a disciple of Osho, see Part VII
Tvadiyam vastu Govinda, tubhyam eva samarpayet: "My Lord,
this life you have given to me, I surrender it back to you with
my thanks." Those were the dying words of my grandfather,
although he never believed in God and was not a Hindu. This sentence,
this sutra, is a Hindu sutra - but in India things are mixed
up, particularly good things. Before he died, among other things,
he said one thing again and again: "Stop the wheel."
I could not understand it at the time. If we stopped the wheel
of the cart, and that was the only wheel there was, then how could
we reach the hospital? When he repeated again and again, "Stop
the wheel, the chakra," I asked my grandmother, "Has
he gone mad?"
She laughed.
That was the thing I liked in that woman. Even though she knew,
as I did, that death was so close...if even I knew, how could
it be possible that she did not know? It was so apparent that
just at any moment he would stop breathing, yet he was insisting
on stopping the wheel. Still she laughed. I can see her laughing
now.
She was not more than fifty at the most. But I have always observed
a strange thing about women: the phony ones, who pretend to be
beautiful, at the age of forty-five are the ugliest. You can go
around the world and see what I am saying. With all their lipstick
and makeup, and false eyebrows and whatnot...my God!
Even God did not think of these things when he created the world.
At least it is not mentioned in the Bible that on the fifth day
he created lipstick, and on the sixth day he created false eyebrows
etcetera. At the age of forty-five, if the woman is really beautiful
she comes to her peak. My observation is: man comes to his peak
at the age of thirty-five, and woman at the age of forty-five.
She is capable of living ten years longer than a man - and
it is not unjust. Giving birth to children she suffers so much
that a little bit of extra life, just to compensate, is perfectly
okay.
My Nani was fifty, still at the peak of her beauty and youth.
I have never forgotten that moment - it was such a moment!
My grandfather was dying and asking us to stop the wheel. What
nonsense! How could I stop the wheel? We had to reach the hospital,
and without the wheel we would be lost in the forest. And my grandmother
was laughing so loudly that even Bhoora, the servant, our driver,
asked, of course from the outside, "What is going on? Why
are you laughing?" Because I used to call her Nani, Bhoora
also used to call her Nani, just out of respect for me. He then
said, "Nani, my master is sick and you are laughing so loudly;
what's the matter? And why is Raja so silent?"
Death, and my grandmother's laughter, both made me utterly silent,
because I wanted to understand what was happening. Something was
happening that I had never known before and I was not going to
lose a single moment through any distraction.
My grandfather said, "Stop the wheel. Raja, can't you hear
me? If I can hear your grandmother's laughter you must be able
to hear me. I know she is a strange woman; I have never been able
to understand her."
I said to him, "Nana, as far as I know she is the simplest
woman I have seen, although I have not seen much yet."
But now to you I can say, I don't think there is any man on
the earth, alive or dead, who has seen so much of women as I have.
But just to console my dying grandfather I said to him, "Don't
be worried about her laughter. I know her. She is not laughing
at what you are saying, it is something else between us, a joke
that I told her."
He said, "Okay. If it is a joke that you told her then
it is perfectly okay for her to laugh. But what about the chakra,
the wheel?"
Now I know, but at that time I was absolutely unacquainted with
such terminology. The wheel represents the whole Indian obsession
with the wheel of life and death. For thousands of years, millions
of people have been doing only one thing: trying to stop the wheel.
He was not talking about the wheel of the bullock cart - that
was very easy to stop; in fact it was difficult to keep it moving.
There was no road - not only at that time, even now!...
...No roads existed then, and even today no railway line
passes by that village. It is a really poor village, and when
I was a child it was even poorer.
I could not understand at that moment why my Nana was so insistent.
Perhaps the bullock cart - because there was no road - was
making too much noise. Everything was rattling, and he was in
agony, so naturally he wanted to stop the wheel. But my grandmother
laughed. Now I know why she laughed. He was talking about the
Indian obsession with life and death, symbolically called the
wheel of life and death - and in short, the wheel - which
goes on and on....
The whole of the Mahabharata is nothing but the Indian obsession
written at length, voluminously, saying that man is born again
and again and again, eternally.
That's why my grandfather was saying, "Stop the wheel."
If I could have stopped the wheel I would have stopped it, not
only for him but for everybody else in the world. Not only would
I have stopped it, I would have destroyed it forever so that nobody
could ever turn it again. But it is not in my hands.
But why this obsession?
I became aware of many things at that moment of his death. I
will talk about everything that I became aware of in that moment,
because that has determined my whole life. glimps14
Death is not the end but only the culmination of one's whole
life, a climax. It is not that you are finished, but you are transported
to another body. That is what the Easterners call "the wheel."
It goes on turning and turning. Yes, it can be stopped, but the
way to stop it is not when you are dying.
That is one of the lessons, the greatest lesson I learned from
my grandfather's death. He was crying, with tears in his eyes,
and asking us to stop the wheel. We were at a loss what to do:
how to stop the wheel?
His wheel was his wheel; it was not even visible to us. It was
his own consciousness, and only he could do it. Since he was asking
us to stop it, it was obvious that he could not do it himself;
hence the tears and his constant insistence on asking us again
and again, as if we were deaf. We told him, "We have heard
you, Nana, and we understand. Please be silent."
In that moment something great happened. I have never revealed
it to anybody; perhaps before this moment was not the time. I
was saying to him, "Please be silent" - the bullock
cart was rattling on the rough, ugly road. It was not even a road,
just a track, and he was insisting, "Stop the wheel, Raja,
do you hear? Stop the wheel."
Again and again I told him, "Yes, I do hear you. I understand
what you mean. You know that nobody except you can stop the wheel,
so please be silent. I will try to help you."
My grandmother was amazed. She looked at me with such big, amazing
eyes: what was I saying? How could I help? I said, "Yes.
Don't look so amazed. I have suddenly remembered one of my past
lives. Seeing his death I have remembered one of my own deaths."
That life and death happened in Tibet. That is the only country
which knows, very scientifically, how to stop the wheel. Then
I started chanting something.
Neither my grandmother could understand, nor my dying grandfather,
nor my servant Bhoora, who was listening intently from the outside.
And what is more, neither could I understand a single word of
what I was chanting. It was only after twelve or thirteen years
that I came to understand what it was. It took that much time
to discover it. It was Bardo Thodal, a Tibetan ritual.
When a man dies in Tibet, they repeat a certain mantra. That
mantra is called bardo. The mantra says to him, "Relax, be
silent. Go to your center, just be there; don't leave it whatsoever
happens to the body. Just be a witness. Let it happen, don't interfere.
Remember, remember, remember that you are only a witness; that
is your true nature. If you can die remembering, the wheel is
stopped."
I repeated the Bardo Thodal for my dying grandfather without
even knowing what I was doing. It was strange - not only that
I repeated it, but also that he became utterly silent listening
to it. Perhaps Tibetan was such a strange thing to hear. He may
never have heard a single word in Tibetan before; he may not even
have known that there was a country called Tibet. Even in his
death he became utterly attentive and silent. The bardo worked
although he could not understand it. Sometimes things you don't
understand work; they work just because you don't understand....
I was repeating the bardo though I did not understand its meaning,
nor did I know where it was coming from, because I had not read
it yet. But when I repeated it just the shock of those strange
words made my grandfather silent. He died in that silence. To
live in silence is beautiful, but to die in silence is far more
beautiful, because death is like an Everest, the highest peak
in the Himalayas. Although nobody taught me, I learned much in
that moment of his silence. I saw myself repeating something absolutely
strange. It shocked me to a new plane of being and pushed me into
a new dimension. I started on a new search, a pilgrimage. glimps15
The moment my Nana died, my grandmother was still laughing the
last flicker of her laughter. Then she controlled herself. She
was certainly a woman who could control herself. But I was not
impressed by her control, I was impressed by her laughter in the
very face of death. Again and again I asked her, "Nani, can
you tell me why you laughed so loudly when death was so imminent?
If even a child like me was aware of it, it is not possible that
you were not aware."
She said, "I was aware, that is why I laughed. I laughed
at the poor man trying to stop the wheel unnecessarily, because
neither birth nor death mean anything in the ultimate sense."
I had to wait for the time when I could ask and argue with her.
When I myself become enlightened, I thought, then I will ask her.
And that's what I did. glimps16
That was my first encounter with death, and it was a beautiful
encounter. It was not in any way ugly, as it more or less happens
for almost every child around the world. Fortunately I was together
with my dying grandfather for hours, and he died slowly. By and
by, I could feel death happening to him, and I could see the great
silence of it.
I was also fortunate that my Nani was present. Perhaps without
her I may have missed the beauty of death, because love and death
are so similar, perhaps the same. She loved me. She showered her
love upon me, and death was there, slowly happening. A bullock
cart...I can still hear its sound...the rattling of its
wheels on the stones...Bhoora continuously shouting to the
bullocks...the sound of his whip hitting them.... I can
hear it all still. It is so deeply rooted in my experience that
I don't think even my death will erase it. Even while dying I
may again hear the sound of that bullock cart.
My Nani was holding my hand, and I was completely dazed, not
knowing what was happening, utterly in the moment. My grandfather's
head was in my lap. I held my hands on his chest, and slowly slowly,
the breathing disappeared. When I felt that he was no longer breathing
I said to my grandmother, "I'm sorry, Nani, but it seems
that he is no longer breathing."
She said, "That's perfectly okay. You need not be worried.
He has lived enough, there is no need to ask for more." She
also told me, "Remember, because these are the moments not
to be forgotten: never ask for more. What is, is enough."
glimps12
Since the day my maternal grandfather died, death became a constant
companion to me. I was only seven years old when he died. He died
on my lap....
After that, death became a constant companion to me. That day
I also died, because one thing became certain, that whether you
live seven years or seventy years - he was seventy years - what
does it matter, you have to die.
My grandfather was a rare man. I could not conceive him telling
a lie, breaking a promise, even judging somebody as bad.
Such a good man, a beautiful man, simply died. What was the meaning
of his life? That became a tortuous question to me - what
was the meaning? What had he attained? For seventy years he lived
the life of a good man; but what was the point of it all? It simply
ended...not even a trace was left behind. His death made me
immensely serious.
I was serious even before his death. By the age of four I started
thinking of problems that people somehow manage to go on postponing
to the very end. I don't believe in postponing. I started asking
questions to my maternal grandfather and he would say, "These
questions! Your whole life is there - there is no hurry - and
you are too young." I said, "I have seen young boys
dying in the village: they had not asked these questions, they
have died without finding the answer. Can you guarantee me that
I will not die tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? Can you give
me a guarantee that I will die only after I have found the answer?"
He said, "I cannot guarantee that, because death is not
in my hands, nor is life in my hands."
"Then," I said, "You should not suggest to me any
postponement. I want the answer now. If you know, then say that
you know and give me the answer. If you don't know, then don't
feel awkward in accepting your ignorance."
Soon he realized that with me there was no alternative. Either
you had to say yes.... But it was not easy then; then you
had to go into deeper details about it - and you could not
deceive me. He started accepting his ignorance, that he didn't
know.
I said, "You are very old, soon you will be dying What
have you been doing for your whole life? At the moment of death
you will have only ignorance in your hands and nothing else. And
these are vital questions - I am not asking you any trivia.
"You go to the temple. I ask you why you go to the temple - have
you found anything in the temple? You have been going your whole
life, and you try to persuade me to come along with you to the
temple." The temple was made by him. One day he accepted
that the truth is "Because I have made the temple. If even
I don't go there, then who is going to go there? But before you
I accept it, that it is futile. I have been going there my whole
life and I have not gained anything."
Then I said, "Try something else. Don't die with the question - die
with the answer." But he died with the question.
The last time he spoke to me, almost ten hours before he died,
he opened his eyes and he said, "You were right: postponing
is not right. I am dying with all the questions with me. So remember,
whatever I was suggesting to you was wrong. You were right, don't
postpone. If a question arises, try to find the answer as quickly
as possible." person23
Bhoora died just because he could not conceive of living in a
world without his master. He simply died. He relaxed into death.
He had come with us to my father's village because he had been
driving the bullock cart. When for a few moments he heard nothing,
no word from the inside of the covered cart, he asked me, "Beta" - it
means son - "is everything okay?"
Again and again Bhoora asked, "Why this silence? Why is
nobody speaking?" But he was the kind of man who would not
look inside the curtain which divided him from us. How could he
look inside when my grandmother was there? That was the trouble,
he could not look. But again and again he asked, "What is
the matter - why is everybody silent?"
I said, "There is nothing wrong. We are enjoying the silence.
Nana wants us to be silent." That was a lie, because Nana
was dead - but in a way it was true. He was silent; that was
a message for us to be silent.
I finally said, "Bhoora, everything is okay; only Nana
is gone."
He could not believe it. He said, "Then how can everything
be okay? Without him I cannot live." And within twenty-four
hours he died. Just as if a flower had closed...refusing to
remain open in the sun and the moon, of his own accord. We tried
everything to save him, because now we were in a bigger town,
my father's town.
My father's town was, for India of course, just a small town.
The population was only twenty thousand. It had a hospital and
a school. We tried everything possible to save Bhoora. The doctor
in the hospital was amazed because he could not believe that this
man was Indian; he looked so European. He must have been a freak
of biology, I don't know. Something must have gone right. As they
say, "Something must have gone wrong," I have coined
the phrase, "Something must have gone right" - why
always wrong?
Bhoora was in shock because of his master's death. We had to
lie to him until we got to the town. Only when we reached the
town and the corpse was taken out of the bullock cart did Bhoora
see what had happened. He then closed his eyes and never opened
them again. He said, "I cannot see my master dead."
And that was only a master-servant relationship. But there had
arisen between them a certain intimacy, a certain closeness which
is indefinable. He never opened his eyes again, that much I can
vouch for. He lived only a few hours longer, and he went into
a coma before dying.
Before my grandfather died, he had told my grandmother, "Take
care of Bhoora. I know you will take care of Raja - I do not
have to tell you that - but take care of Bhoora. He has served
me as nobody else could."
I told the doctor, "Do you, can you, understand the kind
of devotion that must have existed between these two men?"
The doctor asked me, "Is he a European?"
I said, "He looks like one."
The doctor said, "Don't be tricky. You are a child, only
seven or eight years old, but very tricky. When I asked whether
your grandfather was dead, you said no, and that was not true."
I said, "No, it was true: he is not dead. A man of such
love cannot be dead. If love can be dead then there is no hope
for the world. I cannot believe that a man who respected my freedom,
a small child's freedom so much, is dead just because he cannot
breathe. I cannot equate the two, not breathing and death."
The European doctor looked at me suspiciously and told my uncle,
"This boy will either be a philosopher or else he will go
mad." He was wrong: I am both together. There is no question
of either/or. I am not Soren Kierkegaard; there is no question
of either/or. But I wondered why he could not believe me...such
a simple thing....
I could not understand why the doctor could not believe that
my grandfather was not dead. I knew and he knew that as far as
the body was concerned, it was finished; there was no quarrel
about that. But there is something more than the body - in
the body and yet not part of the body. Let me repeat it to emphasize
it: in the body and yet not of the body. Love reveals it; freedom
gives it wings to soar in the sky. glimps13
My grandfather had entrusted to Bhoora all the keys and all the
affairs of the house and the land....
Many years later when I was again living in Bombay, Bhoora's son
came to me and gave me the keys and said, "We have been waiting
and waiting for you to come, but nobody came. We have taken care
of the land and looked after the crops and put aside all the money."
I gave him the keys back and said to him, "Everything now
belongs to you. The house, the crops and the money belong to you,
they are yours. I am sorry that I did not know before, but none
of us wanted to go back and feel the pain." glimps03
I was telling you about an astrologer who had promised to work
on my life's birth chart. He died before he had done it, so his
son had to prepare the chart, but he was also puzzled. He said,
"It is almost certain that this child is going to die at
the age of twenty-one. Every seven years he will have to face
death." So my parents, my family, were always worried about
my death. Whenever I would come to the end of a seven-year cycle,
they would become afraid. And he was right. At the age of seven
I survived, but I had a deep experience of death - not of
my own, but of the death of my maternal grandfather. And I was
so much attached to him that his death appeared to be my own death.
In my own childish way I imitated his death. I would not eat
for three days continuously, would not drink water, because I
felt that if I did so it would be a betrayal. I loved him so much,
he loved me so much, that when he was alive I was never allowed
to go to my parents. I was with my maternal grandfather. He said,
"When I die, only then can you go." He lived in a very
small village, so I couldn't go to any school because there was
no school. He would never leave me, but then the time came when
he died. He was part and parcel of me. I had grown with his presence,
his love.
When he died I felt that it would be a betrayal to eat. Now
I didn't want to live. It was childish, but through it something
very deep happened. For three days I remained lying down; I would
not come out of the bed. I said, "Now that he is dead, I
do not want to live." I survived, but those three days became
a death experience. I died in a way, and I came to realize - now
I can tell about it, though at that time it was just a vague experience - I
came to feel that death is impossible. This was a feeling. vbt24
The facticity of aloneness took hold of me from the age of seven
years on. Aloneness became my nature. His death freed me forever
from all relationships. His death became for me the death of all
attachments. Thereafter, I could not establish a bond of relationship
with anyone. Whenever my relationship with anyone would begin
to become intimate, that death stared at me. Therefore with whomsoever
I experienced some attachment, I felt that if not today, tomorrow
that person could also die.
Once a person becomes clearly aware of the certainty of death,
then the possibility of attachment is lessened in the same proportion.
In other words, our attachments are based on the forgetfulness
of the fact of death. With whomsoever we love, we continue to
believe that death is not unavoidable. That is why we speak of
love as immortal. It is our tendency to believe that whomsoever
we love will not die.
But for me love invariably became associated with death. This
meant that I was not able to love without being aware of death.
There can be friendship, there can be compassion, but no infatuation
over anything could catch me. Very deeply did death touch me - and
so intensely that the more I thought of it, the more and more
clear did it become to me each day.
Thus, the madness of life did not affect me. Death stared at
me before the thrust into life began. This event can be considered
as the first which left a deep impact and influence on my mind.
From that day onwards, every day, every moment, the awareness
of life invariably became associated with the awareness of death.
From then onwards, to be or not to be had the same . Thus, the
madness of life did not affect me. Death stared at me before the
thrust into life began. This event can be considered as the first
which left a deep impact and influence on my mind. From that day
onwards, every day, every moment, the awareness of life invariably
became associated with the awareness of death. From then onwards,
to be or not to be had the same value for me. At that tender age,
loneliness seized me.
Sooner or later in life - in old age - loneliness seizes
everyone. But it seized me before I knew what company meant. I
may live with everyone, but whether I am in a crowd or a society,
with a friend or an intimate, I am still alone. Nothing touches
me; I remain untouched.
As that first feeling of loneliness became deeper and deeper,
something new began to happen in life. At first that loneliness
had made me only unhappy, but slowly it began changing into happiness - because
it is a rule that when we become attached to anyone or anything,
in one way or the other we turn from facing ourselves. Actually,
the desire for attachment to someone or something is a device
for escaping from one's own self. And as the other goes on becoming
more and more important to us, to the very same extent he becomes
the center for us and we become the periphery.
We continue to remain other-centered for the whole life. Then
one's own self can never become the center. For me, the possibility
of anyone else becoming my center was destroyed in the very first
steps of my life. The first center that was formed broke down,
and there was no other way but to revert back to my own self.
I was, so to speak, thrown back to my own self. Slowly, that made
me more and more happy. Afterwards I came to feel that this close
observation of death at a tender age became a blessing in disguise
for me. If such a death had occurred at a later age, perhaps I
would have found other substitutes for my grandfather.
So the more unripe and innocent the mind is, the more difficult
it becomes to replace a love object. The more clever, skillful,
cunning and calculative the mind becomes, the more easy it becomes
to replace or substitute another for the one lost. The more quickly
you replace, the sooner you become free from the unhappiness derived
from the first. But it was not possible for me to find a substitute
on that very day when death occurred.
Children are not able to find a substitute easily. The place
of the love object that is lost remains empty. The older you are
the faster you can fill the emptiness, because then one can think.
A gap in thought can be filled up quickly, but emotional emptiness
cannot be quickly filled. A thought can persuade one faster, but
the heart cannot persuade. And at a tender age when one is not
capable of thinking but is capable only of feeling, the difficulty
is greater.
Therefore, the other could not become important to me in the sense
that it could save me from my own self. So I had to live with
my own self only. At first this seemed to give me unhappiness,
but slowly it began giving me the experience of happiness. Thereafter,
I did not suffer any unhappiness.
The cause of unhappiness lies in our attaching ourselves to
the other, in expectation from the other, in the hope of gaining
happiness from the other. You never actually gain happiness, but
the hope is always sustained. And whenever that hope gives way,
frustration begins.
Thus, in the very first experience, I became so badly disappointed
from the other that I did not try again. That direction was closed
for me, and so thereafter I never became unhappy. Then a new type
of happiness began to be experienced which can never come from
the other. Happiness can never come from the other; what is created
is only a hope for future happiness. Actually, only the shadow
of happiness is received.
Exactly the reverse is the situation when encountering oneself
for the first time. When encountering oneself, unhappiness is
experienced in the beginning, but authentic happiness progressively
comes about as the encounter continues. On the contrary, encountering
the other gives happiness in the beginning, but unhappiness is
the end.
So, to me, being thrown upon oneself begins the journey toward
the spiritual. How we become thrown back in this way is another
matter. Life gives many opportunities for being thrown back to
oneself. But the more clever we are, the quicker we are in rescuing
ourselves from such an opportunity. At such moments we move out
from ourselves.
If my wife dies, I am immediately in search, and then I marry
another. If my friend is lost, I begin to search for another.
I cannot leave any gap. By filling that gap, the opportunity I
would have had to revert back to my own self is lost in a moment,
along with its immense possibilities.
If I had become interested in the other, I would have lost the
opportunity to journey toward the self. I became a sort of a stranger
to others. Generally, it is at this tender age that we become
related with the other, when we are admitted into society. That
is the age when we are initiated, so to speak, by the society
which wants to absorb us. But I have never been initiated into
society. It just could not happen. Whenever I entered into the
society, I entered as an individual and I remained aloof and separate
like an island.
I do not remember that I ever cultivated any friendship, though
there were many who wanted to be my friends. Many persons made
friends with me, and they enjoyed making friendship with me because
it was not possible to make me an enemy. But I do not recall that
I have ever gone of my own accord to anyone in order to make any
friend. If someone threw himself on me, it was a different matter.
It is not that I never welcomed friendship. If someone made a
friend of me, I wholeheartedly welcomed it. But even then I could
not become a friend in the ordinary sense. I have always remained
aloof.
In short, even while studying in school, I remained aloof. Neither
with any of my teachers, nor with any fellow student, nor with
any other, could I develop such a relationship as would drown
me or break my being an island. Friends came and also stayed with
me. I met many people as well; I had many friends. But from my
side there was nothing that could make me dependent upon them
or which would cause me to remember them.
It is very interesting to note that I do not remember anyone.
It has never happened that I would sit pondering over someone
with the feeling that if I would meet him it would be very pleasant.
If someone does meet me, it makes me very happy, but I do not
become unhappy due to not meeting someone. For the state of ultimate
joy, I believe that only my grandfather's death was responsible.
That death threw me back to myself permanently. I have not been
able to revert back from the center. Due to this condition of
being an outsider, a stranger, I have seen a new dimension of
experience. It is a condition in which, although I am amidst everything,
I continue to remain outside.
|
