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Part VII : Death of Osho's Father, and his Mahaparanirvana
On 8th September 1979, Osho's father, Dadaji or Swami Devateerth
Bharti, dies enlightened. At the death celebration in Buddha Hall,
Osho places flowers on his father's body and touches his head.
Osho creates an annual festival on 8th September, Mahaparanirvana
Day, to celebrate all sannyasins, past and future, who have died
and will die.*
*The book Be Still and Know describes this celebration, illustrated
with colour photos.
You ask: Would you say something about your father's death yesterday?
Vivek, it was not a death at all. Or it was the total death. And
both mean the same thing. I was hoping that he would die in this
way. He died a death that everybody should be ambitious for: he
died in samadhi, he died utterly detached from the body and the
mind.
I went to see him only three times during this whole month he
was in the hospital. Whenever I felt that he was just on the verge,
I went to see him. The first two times I was a little afraid that
if he died he would have to be born again; a little attachment
to the body was there. His meditation was deepening every day,
but a few chains with the body were still intact, were not broken.
Yesterday I went to see him: I was immensely happy that now
he could die a right death. He was no more concerned with the
body. Yesterday, early in the morning at three o'clock, he attained
his first glimpse of the eternal—and immediately he became
aware that now he was going to die. This was the first time he
had called me to come; the other two times I had gone on my own.
Yesterday he called me to come because he was certain that he
was going to die. He wanted to say goodbye, and he said it beautifully—with
no tears in the eyes, with no longing for life any more.
Hence, in a way it is not a death but a birth into eternity.
He died in time and was born into eternity. Or it is a total death—total
in the sense that now he will not be coming any more. And that
is the ultimate achievement; there is nothing higher than it.
He left the world in utter silence, in joy, in peace. He left
the world like a lotus flower—it was worth celebrating.
And these are the occasions for you to learn how to live and how
to die. Each death should be a celebration, but it can be a celebration
only if it leads you to higher planes of existence.
He died enlightened. And that's how I would like each of my sannyasins
to die. Life is ugly if you are unenlightened, and even death
becomes beautiful if you are enlightened. Life is ugly if you
are unenlightened because it is a misery, a hell. Death becomes
a door to the divine if you are enlightened; it is no more a misery,
it is no more a hell. In fact, on the contrary, it is getting
out of all hell, out of all misery.
I am immensely glad that he died the way he died. Remember it:
as meditation deepens, you become farther and farther away from
your body-mind composite. And when meditation reaches its ultimate
peak, you can see everything.
Yesterday morning he was absolutely aware of death, that it
had come. And he called me. This was the first time he had called
me, and the moment I saw him I saw that he was no more in the
body. All the pains of the body had disappeared. That's why the
doctors were puzzled: the body was functioning in an absolutely
normal way. This was the last thing the doctors could have imagined,
that he could die. He could have died any day before. He was in
deep pain, there were many complexities in the body: his heart
was not functioning well, his pulse was missing; there were blood
clots in the brain, in the leg, in the hand.
Yesterday he was absolutely normal. They checked, and they said
it was impossible; now there was no problem, np danger. But this
is how it happens. The day of the danger, according to the physicians,
didn't prove dangerous. The first twenty-four hours when he was
admitted to the hospital one month before were the most dangerous;
they were afraid that he would die. He didn't die. Then for the
next twenty-four hours they were still hesitant to say whether
he would be saved or not. A suggestion had even come from a surgeon
to cut the leg off completely, because if blood clots started
happening in other places it would be impossible to save him.
But I was against cutting off the leg, because one has to die
one day—why distort the body and why create more pain? And
just living in itself has no meaning, just lengthening the life
has no meaning. I said no. They were surprised. And when he survived
for almost four weeks they thought I was right, that there had
been no need to cut off the leg; the leg was coming back, becoming
alive again. He had started walking also, which Dr. Sardesai thought
was a miracle. They had not hoped for that much, that he would
be able to walk.
Yesterday he was perfectly normal, everything normal. And that
gave me the indication that now death was possible. If meditation
happens before death, everything becomes normal. One dies in perfect
health, because one is not really dying but entering into a higher
plane. The body becomes a stepping-stone.
He was meditating for years. He was a rare man—it is very
rare to find a father like him. A father becoming a disciple of
his own son: it is rare. Jesus' father did not dare to become
a disciple, Buddha's father hesitated for years to become a disciple.
But he was meditating for years. Three hours each day, in the
morning from three to six, he was sitting in meditation. Yesterday
also, in the hospital also, he continued.
Yesterday it happened. One never knows when it will happen.
One has to go on digging…one day one comes across the source
of water, the source of consciousness. Yesterday it happened;
it happened in right time. If he had left his body just one day
before he would have been back in the body again soon—a
little clinging was there. But yesterday the slate was completely
clean. He attained to no-mind, he died like a Buddha. What more
can one have than Buddhahood?
My effort here is to help you all to live like Buddhas and die
like Buddhas. The death of a Buddha is both! It is not a death,
because life is eternal. Life does not begin with birth and does
not end with death. Millions of times you have been born and died;
they are all small episodes In the eternal pilgrimage. But because
you are unconscious you cannot see that which is beyond birth
and death.
As you become more conscious, you can see your original face.
He saw his original face yesterday. He heard the one hand clapping,
he heard the soundless sound. Hence it is not a death: it is attaining
life eternal. On the other hand it can be called a total death—total
death in the sense that he will not be coming any more.Rejoice!
bestil09
And my father, before he died, told me, "Please forgive
all of us—we were trying to make you part of the society.
If you had not resisted so strongly we would have succeeded. But
you were so strong in your struggle that we failed. But now I
can say with great joy that our failure was good. Our failure
gave you your individuality."
He died as a sannyasin, enlightened. In the whole history, it
has rarely happened that a father has become a disciple of his
own son. And the moment he became a sannyasin he behaved like
a sannyasin—not like a father. dless33
You say: When you came to say farewell to Dadaji on the podium
in Buddha Hall, suddenly the area where you and Dadaji's body
were became like a film. You both seemed to be without substance.
The other half of the podium where Mataji sat, and the rest of
Buddha Hall where we were all sitting, seemed normal. Just the
part where you were seemed different. What happened?
Death, if it happens with enlightenment, is a tremendous experience.
On the one hand the man dies; on the other hand he achieves the
totality of life.
When I touched my father's seventh chakra, just on the top of
the head, those who were perceptive, silent, meditative, may have
experienced something strange happening. According to the centuries-old
science of inner reality, a man's life energy is released from
the center, the chakra, at which he was living.
Most people die from the lowest chakra, the sex center. There
are seven chakras in the body from where life can go out of the
body. The last is on top of the head, and unless you are enlightened
life cannot go out from that chakra.
When I touched my father's seventh chakra, it was still warm.
Life had left it, but it was as if the physical part of the chakra
was still throbbing with the tremendous happening.
It is a rare happening. And in that moment it may have appeared
to many that the small section on the podium where I was with
my father's body was in a different world. It was, in a sense,
because it was on a different level. Just by his feet was my mother…and
ten thousand sannyasins in Buddha Hall—that was the normal
world.
But something abnormal had happened. The chakra was still warm,
the body was as if it was still rejoicing in the phenomenon. If
you had eyes to see, then this distinction was bound to be seen.
It is good that it came to your vision, the difference. It is
a difference of levels. The lowest is where most people are living,
and the effort here is, in this mystery school, to bring everybody
to the highest. psycho19
Osho refers to when he was a child with long hair which his
father cut short; Osho went to the barber and had his whole head
shaved, which caused his father much embarassment, as people thought
he had died.
And this time when my father actually died, a friend inquired
of me, wrote a letter, "What are you going to do about it?
Are you going to shave your head?"
I said, "I did it in advance, forty years ago! And one
can do it only once. Moreover, this time my father has not died;
in fact, he has been dead up to now. This time he has entered
into eternal life; he has tasted for the first time what life
is. I don't consider him as dead: he has never been more alive."
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My father is no more, but I remember him in such moments, when
I suddenly see that I am behaving just like him. When I see his
picture I know that when I too am seventy-five, God willing, then
I will look just like him. And it is so good to feel that I will
not betray him, that I will represent him even to my very last
breath….
My body functions exactly like my father's even in its illnesses.
I am proud of it. My father suffered from asthma, so when I suffer
from asthma I know this body comes from my father, with all its
faults, flaws and errors. He was a diabetic, so am I. He loved
to talk, and I have done nothing else all my life than talk. In
every way I have been his son.
He was a great father—not just because he was my father
but because even though he was a father, he touched the feet of
his son and became his disciple. That was his greatness. Books08
I was worried about my mother when my father died. I could not
believe that she would be able to survive. They had loved each
other so much, they had almost become one. She survived only because
she also loves me.
I have been continuously worried about her. I wanted her to
be near me just so that she can die in utter fulfillment. Now
I know. I have seen her, I have seen into her, and I can say to
you—and through you it will one day reach the world—she
has become enlightened. I was her last attachment. Now there is
nothing left for her to be attached to. She is an enlightened
woman—uneducated, simple, not even knowing what enlightenment
is. That's the beauty! One can be enlightened without knowing
what enlightenment is, and vice versa: one can know everything
about enlightenment and remain unenlightened. glimps02
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