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What´s the
significance of facing the issue of death
and dying?
1. Almost
all human beings are consciously or unconsciously afraid of the inescapable
process of dying and the unknown of death, the loss of everything we believe to
be and to know. A life overshadowed by fear can never be fulfilled or peaceful,
it will remain an endeavour to create false security or the illusion of immortality. Only
a deep understanding of the mystery of death and dying can dissolve these fears,
and will bring a new quality into our life. And then the moment of death can be
a fearless, conscious transition into another dimension, a return into our true
nature, which we believed we had lost while alive. The lost awareness of our real
nature is the cause for psychological and spiritual suffering of human beings. Only
a fearless being can be really loving, conscious, authentic and creative 2.
The conscious encounter with our mortality gives us the courage and clarity for
a conscious decision to live our life NOW as intensely, lovingly and fulfilling
as possible. The pattern of postponing qualitatively essential things is destructive
to a life that is meant to be an expression of aliveness, joy and compassion.
Most people only recognize very close to their death their overwhelming pain about
having wasted their life with unessential things and values. In such pain and
existential anguish death is a vain struggle and makes us miss what is called
" the crescendo of life". | |
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What
will meditation do to solve my problems ?
If you are clear, if you can see,
your life-problems dissolve. Let me remind you about using the word 'dissolve'.
I am not saying you find the answers, solutions to your problems, no. And I am
only talking about life-problems; that's what you have asked about.
This
is the most important thing about life-problems to understand: they are created
by your unclarity of vision. So it is not that first you see them clearly, then
you find the solution, and then you try to apply the solution. No, the process
is not that long; the process is very simple and short. The moment you can
see your life-problem clearly, it dissolves. It is not that you have now found
an answer that you will apply, and someday you will succeed in destroying the
problem. The problem existed in your unclarity of vision. You were its creator.
Remember again, I am talking about life-problems. I am not saying that if your
car is broken down you just sit silently and see clearly what the problem is:
the problem is clear, now do something. It is not a question that you simply sit
under a tree and meditate and just once in a while open your eyes and see whether
the problem is solved or not. This is not a life-problem, it is a mechanical
problem. If your tire is punctured you will have to change the wheel. Sitting
won't do; you just get up and change the wheel. It has nothing to do with your
mind and your clarity, it has something to do with the county road. What can
your clarity do with the county road? Otherwise, three thousand meditators here
cannot mend one county road? Just meditation would have been enough -- and in
the morning you would find an asphalt road. But the question is only about
life-problems. For example, you are feeling jealous, angry, you are feeling a
kind of meaninglessness. You are dragging yourself somehow. You don't feel that
life is juicy anymore. These are life-problems and they arise out of your unclarity
of mind. Because unclarity is the source of their arising, clarity becomes
their dissolution. If you are clear, if you can see clearly, the problem will
disappear. You have not to do anything other than that. Just seeing, just
watching its whole process: how the problem arises, how it takes possession of
you, how you become completely clouded by it, blinded by it; and how you start
acting madly, for which you repent later on, about which you realize later on
that it was sheer insanity, that "I did it in spite of myself. I never wanted
to do it, still I did it. And even when I was doing it I knew that I didn't want
to do it." But it was as if you were possessed...
OSHO
Why do I need to know the ego and understand it in order to live
and die consciously?
Q: You often speak about the ego, the unconscious structures of our conditionings, and our true nature.I find it difficult to really understand the ego and its belief in separation, and why this is important for a conscious understanding of death and dying. I just don´t want to live any longer in this deep fears of life, of being myself, and of dying.
A: The spiritual search and the question about a conscious death only make sense if we can be open to the fact that there is something in human beings which exists beyond our ordinary limited consciousness, in which we live, suffer, have painful experiences and emotions, and finally have to leave this physical form behind.d
We need a great openness, a spiritual intelligence, to ask ourselves: is there something inside this impermanent being which is not going to die? What is love? Who or what am I really behind my roles and masks? Am I only this body and this thinking mind, which only lives in problems and desires, but has no innate wisdom which helps me to be free of suffering and live in fulfillment?
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