| 
Part-I : Osho's Past Lives
The moment the child is born, you think, is the beginning of its
life.
That is not true.
The moment an old man dies, you think, is the end of his life.
It is not.
Life is far bigger than birth and death.
Birth and death are not two ends of life; many births and many
deaths happen within life. Life itself has no beginning, no end:
life and eternity are equivalent….
Life begins at the point of your past life's death. When you
die, on the one side one chapter of life, which people think was
your whole life, is closed. It was only a chapter in a book which
has infinite chapters. One chapter closes, but the book is not
closed. Just turn the page and another chapter begins.
The person dying starts visualizing his next life. This is a
known fact, because it happens before the chapter closes….
Buddha has a word for it, he calls it tanha. Literally it means
desire, but metaphorically it means the whole life of desire.
All these things happened: frustrations, fulfillments, disappointments,
successes, failures…but all this happened within a certain
area you can call desire.
The dying man has to see the whole of it before he moves on further,
just to recollect it, because the body is going: this mind is
not going to be with him, this brain is not going to be with him.
But the desire released from this mind will cling to his soul,
and this desire will decide his future life. Whatever has remained
unfulfilled, he will move towards that target.
Your life begins far back before your birth,
before your mother's impregnation, further back in your past life's
end. That end is the beginning of this life. One chapter closes,
another chapter opens. Now, how this new life will be is ninety-nine
percent determined by the last moment of your death. What you
collected, what you have brought with you like a seed - that seed
will become a tree, bring fruits, bring flowers, or whatever happens
to it. You cannot read it in the seed, but the seed has the whole
blueprint….
If a man dies fully alert, seeing the whole terrain
that he has passed and seeing the whole stupidity of it, he is
born with a sharpness, with an intelligence, with a courage -
automatically. It is not something he does. misery09
There are six great religions in the world. They can be divided
into two categories: one consists of Judaism, Christianity and
Islam. They believe in only one life. You are just between birth
and death, there is nothing beyond birth and death - life is all.
Although they believe in heaven and hell and God, they are the
earnings from one life, a single life. The other category consists
of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. They believe in the theory
of reincarnation. One is born again and again, eternally - unless
one becomes enlightened, and then the wheel stops. glimpse16
I have meditated; I have come to a point where I can see my own
past lives, and that's proof enough. It is my knowing, my experiencing;
it is nothing to do with Indian heritage, beliefs, or anything.
I speak on my own authority. last112
I began as an intellectual - not only in this life but in many
lives. My whole work in many lives has been concerned with the
intellect—refining the intellect, sharpening the intellect.
inzen08
I have known so many esoteric groups - in this life and before.
I have been in contact with many esoteric groups, but I cannot
tell you their whereabouts. I cannot tell you their names, because
that is not permitted. And it is of no use really. But I can tell
you that they still exist, they still try to help….gate08
I knew Bodhidharma* personally. I traveled with the man for at
least three months. He loved me just as I loved him. You will
be curious to know why he loved me. He loved me because I never
asked him any question. He said to me, "You are the first
person I have met who does not ask a question—and I only
get bored with all the questions. You are the only person who
does not bore me."
I said, "There is a reason."
He said, "What is that?"
I said, "I only answer. I never question. If you have any
question you can ask me. If you don't have a question then keep
your mouth shut."
We both laughed, because we both belonged to the same category
of insanity. He asked me to continue the journey with him, but
I said, "Excuse me, I have to go my own way, and from this
point it separates from yours."
He could not believe it. He had never invited
anyone before. This was the man who had even refused Emperor Wu
- the greatest emperor of those days, with the greatest empire
- as if he was a beggar. Bodhidharma could not believe his eyes,
that I could refuse him.
I said, "Now you know how it feels to be refused. I wanted
to give you a taste of it. Goodbye." But that was fourteen
centuries ago. glimps06
*Note: Bodhidharma: the mystic who brought Buddhism from India
to China
Some days ago Lama Karmapa had said something about me…*
Karmapa had said that my one body from some past birth is preserved
in a cave in Tibet. Ninety-nine bodies are preserved there, among
them one body is mine, that was said by Karmapa.
In Tibet they have tried for thousands of years to preserve the
bodies in which some extraordinary things happened. They have
preserved such bodies as an experimentation. Because such events
do not happen again and again, and do not happen so easily. After
thousands of years, once in a while such things happen. For instance,
someone's third eye opened and along with it, it broke a hole
in the bone where the third eye exists. Such an event takes place
sometimes once in hundreds of thousands of years. The third eye
opens in so many people but this hole does not happen to everybody.
When this hole happens, the reason behind it is that in that case
the third eye has opened with tremendous force. Such skulls or
such a body is then preserved by them.
For instance, someone's sex energy, the basic energy, arose with
such force that it broke a hole in the crown of his head and merges
into the cosmos. Such a thing happens only once in a while. Many
people merge into the universal reality, but the energy filters
through so slowly, and with such intervals, that the energy simply
seeps in small measures, and a hole is not created. Once in a
while, it happens with such sudden intensity that, breaking the
skull, the entire energy merges into the cosmos. So they preserve
that body. This way, until now they have done the greatest experiment
in the history of mankind. They have preserved ninety-nine bodies.
So Karmapa had said that among those ninety-nine bodies a body
of mine is also preserved….
It is the ninety-seventh body, but if it is counted from the
opposite side, it can be the third one. samadh12
*Note: Swami Govind Siddharth, one of Osho's
disciples, reported that on 6 June 1972 Karmapa told him, "Osho
is the greatest incarnation since Buddha in India, and is a living
Buddha!" and "Now in this life, Osho has taken birth
specially in order to help people spiritually only for this purpose.
He has taken birth fully consciously."
Karmapa was very excited and indicated a close association with
Osho in past life. Osho's last birth is said to have occurred
about 700 years ago. Karmapa was referring "to one birth
before that". Osho was one of their great incarnations two
births ago. "If you want to see one of Osho's past incarnations,
you can go to Tibet and see his golden statue there which is preserved
in the Hall of Incarnations." Asked of whom Osho is an incarnation,
he replied, "Now, that is a secret. Unless someone is the
head of one of our monasteries, we do not disclose whose incarnation
he is."
"My blessings are always there, and I know that whatever
we Tibetans are not going to be able to do to help others, Osho
will do. "Osho is the only person able to do this, he took
birth in India specially. You are very very fortunate to have
him. He is the only divine incarnation living today who will be
a world teacher." And "The world will know him but only
a few people will realize what he actually is. He will be the
only person who can guide properly, and can be a world teacher
in this age, and he has taken birth only for this purpose."
You ask me: Please would you say something about your last life,
and if you were born in Your present life fully realized.
My previous birth took place about seven hundred years ago….
It can be said that I was born with nearabout full knowledge.
I say nearabout only because some steps have been left out deliberately,
and deliberately that can be done.
In this connection, the Jaina thinking is very scientific.* They
have divided knowledge into fourteen steps. Thirteen steps are
in this world and the fourteenth is in the beyond….
After a certain stage of development, for example, after the
attainment of twelve steps, the length of time that it takes to
achieve the remaining steps can be stretched out. They can be
attained either in one birth, two births or in three births. Great
use can be made of postponement.
After the attainment of full realization there is no further
possibility of taking birth more than one time more. Such an enlightened
one is not likely to cooperate or be helpful for more than one
additional birth. But after reaching twelve steps, if two can
be set aside, then such a person can be useful for many births
more. And the possibility is there to set them aside.
On reaching the twelfth step, the journey has nearabout come
to an end. I say nearabout: that means that all walls have collapsed;
only a transparent curtain remains through which everything can
be seen. However the curtain is there. After lifting it, there
is no difficulty in going beyond. After going beyond the curtain,
whatsoever you are ordinarily able to see can be seen from the
other side of the curtain also. There is no difference at all.
So this is why I say nearabout: by taking one step more, one
can go beyond the curtain. But then there is a possibility of
only one more birth, while if one remains on this side of the
curtain one can take as many births as one wants. After crossing
into the beyond, there is no way of coming back more than once
to this side of the curtain….
Seven hundred years ago, in my previous life, there was a spiritual
practice of twenty-one days, to be done before death. I was to
give up my body after a total fast of twenty-one days. There were
reasons for this, but I could not complete those twenty-one days.
Three days remained. Those three days I had to complete in this
life. This life is a continuation from there. The intervening
period does not have any meaning in this respect. When only three
days remained in that life, I was killed. Twenty-one days could
not be completed because I was killed just three days before,
and those three days were omitted….
The person who killed me had no enmity with me, though he was
taken to be and was treated as, an enemy. That killing became
valuable….
Now I can take still another birth. There is now a possibility
of one more birth. But that will depend on whether I feel that
it will be useful. During this whole life I shall go on striving
to see whether one more birth will be of some use. Then it is
worthwhile taking birth; otherwise the matter is over and it is
no use making any more effort. So that killing was valuable and
useful….
In the last moments of my previous life, the remaining work could
have been done in only three days because time was very compact.
My age was one hundred and six years. Time was moving very fast.
The story of those three days continued in my childhood of this
birth. In my previous life it was at its end, but to finish that
work here in this life took twenty-one years.
Many a time, if the opportunity is missed, it may be necessary
to spend as many as seven years for every single day. So in this
life I did not come with full realization, but came with nearabout
full realization…. known02
*Note: known02 and known03 explain in detail Jaina and Buddhist
understanding of past lives in relation to enlightened masters.
It is too complex to include here.
What little I have told you about my previous life is not because
it has any value or that you may know something about me. I have
told you this only because it may make you reflect about yourselves
and set you in search of your past lives. The moment you know
your past lives, there will be a spiritual revolution and evolution.
Then you will start from where you had left off in your last life;
otherwise you will get lost in endless lives and reach nowhere.
There will only be a repetition.
There has to be a link, a communication, between this life and
the previous one. Whatsoever you had achieved in your previous
life should come to be known, and you should have the capacity
to take the next step forwards….
Nowadays the difficulty is this: it is not very difficult to
make you remember your previous births, but the thing called courage
has been lost. It is possible to make you remember your previous
births only if you have achieved the capacity to remain undisturbed
in the midst of the very difficult memories of this life. Otherwise
it is not possible….
When no memory of this life can be a cause of anxiety to you,
only then can you be led into the memories of past lives. Otherwise
those memories may become great traumas for you, and the door
to such traumas cannot be opened unless you have the capacity
and worthiness to face them. known02
Do you hear me? Do you see me? I stand at the door and knock,
and I knock because of a promise made in another life and another
age. teacup06
This was my assurance given to many friends in the previous life:
that when truth is attained, I will inform them.
|
