Vipassana's Death
Vipassana is a sannyasini who loved music, had been a dancer and a singer and was part of the ashram's music group. She died in the afternoon of March 1976. Here's Osho's discourse about her death.
I know your hearts are
heavy, sad. That's natural. But I would like also to help you to go
a little beyond the natural. Because these moments are rare. In
these moments you can sink very deep. You can also soar very high.
The same energy that can become a sinking phenomenon, can become a
soaring phenomenon also. The energy is the same. It depends on how
you use it, how you transform it. A few basic things I would like to
tell you.
First - happiness and sadness are not two things, but two aspects of
the same energy. Hence happiness can become sadness; sadness can
become happiness. ...
Whenever somebody dies - somebody you have known, loved, lived with,
somebody who has become a part of your being - something in you also
dies.
Vipassana had become a part of this commune, of this family. She was
totally surrendered to me. Her devotion was complete. Of course you
will miss her. A vacuum will be felt. That's natural. But the same
vacuum can be converted into a door. And death is a door to God.
Death is the only phenomenon left which is not yet corrupted by man.
Otherwise man has corrupted everything, polluted everything. Only
death still remains virgin, uncorrupted... untouched by the hands of
man. Man would like to corrupt it also, but he cannot hold it
Use these moments. When suddenly death enters into your
consciousness, your whole life feels meaningless. It is meaningless.
Death reveals a truth. When suddenly you come across death, the very
earth underneath you slips away. Suddenly you become aware that this
death also implies your death. Every death is everybody's death.
Never send a man to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
In death we are all equal. In life we may be different, separate
individuals. In death, all individuality, all separation disappears.
Death reveals a fact about your life - that whatsoever you have been
thinking as very concrete, real, is very filmy. It is dream stuff.
It can be taken away from you any moment. So don't be too much
concerned with it, remain a little aloof.
This is not your home - at the most an overnight stay. As Vipassana
is gone, everybody has to leave.
Everybody is standing in the same line, in the same queue. So don't
feel sorry for Vipassana. Don't feel sad for her. If you at all want
to be alert, aware, then be aware that your life - whatsoever you
mean by it - is just a dream. Any moment it will be broken.
The life that you have been thinking of as true life is not true
life. Death brings this truth home. It hammers deeply into your
heart. That's why it hurts. It is not Vipassana's death that hurts
you. It is something else; it is your own death. It is the awareness
that life is meaningless; it is the awareness that life is not
worthwhile. And how much we get involved in it, how much we get
identified with it. And how much we are ready to pay for it - and it
is not more than a dream.
Remember this. Then you are using this situation for a tremendous
awareness. Your whole life can be transformed - and then you will
feel grateful to Vipassana. And that will be a true respect for her.
And when I say don't feel sorry for her, I mean it. She has done
well, tremendously well. She has died as one should die. She
accepted death. That is one of the most difficult things to do. Only
if you are in deep meditation is that possible, otherwise not.
Because the whole mind, the whole human mind, has been trained
against death. We have been taught for centuries that death is
against life.
Of course we are scared and cannot relax; cannot be in a let go. And
if you cannot be in a let-go with death, you will remain tense in
your life - because death is not separate from life. It is not the
end of life. Rather, on the contrary, it is the very crescendo, it
is the very peak, it is the fulfillment of life, it is the very
climax. And if you are afraid of the climax, naturally you will be
unable, you will not be able in any way, to relax in life also,
because everywhere in life, death will be felt to be hidden. You
will be frightened.
People who are afraid of death cannot relax in sleep, because sleep
is also a very small death that comes every day. People who are
afraid of death are afraid of love also, because love is a death.
People who are afraid of death become afraid of all orgasmic
experiences, because in each orgasm the ego dies. One who is afraid
of death will be afraid of everything. He will miss everything.
She relaxed. She died as I wanted her to die in a deep let-go. She
accepted death. She was not in any conflict, she was not struggling.
And this is the criterion - that you have come to know something
tremendously beautiful within yourself which is beyond death. One
can relax in death only when one has come to feel something which is
deathless.
Those few days she was in hospital were days of suffering and
sadness for you, but not for her. I have been continuously watching
her. I have been in contact with her continuously. She was relaxing.
She has gone into death without any struggle, without any fight on
her part. Once you die that way then only one more birth is possible
- not more than that. She will be born once more, that's all. And
then the wheel of life and death is finished for her.
You be happy for her - don't feel sorry for her. She has attained to
something very beautiful; you should feel jealous. And then you will
be able to give her a good farewell.
Remember, not only you are here - she is also here.
In a way, nobody ever dies. In a way, every moment everybody is
dying. So when you go to give her the send-off, give the send-off as
one gives to somebody who is departing on a long journey. Not to a
dead person - to an alive person. Let this be a send-off of dancing,
celebration, festivity. She was a musician and a dancer - and she
would love it.
Dance when you go to give her the send-off this night. When fire
starts consuming her body, dance as much as you can around her
funeral pyre. Let your whole energy become a dance. Dance to orgasm;
forget yourself completely. And give this send-off for her as if she
is alive. She is alive and if you really dance, many of you will
feel her alive presence. A few of you, if you really celebrate the
moment, will be able to see, actually be able to see her.
So don't be sad - otherwise you will miss. Because when you are sad
and gloomy and depressed, your eyes lose perceptivity. When you are
happy and bubbling with some unknown joy, then your eyes are clear;
then they have a clarity. And for this moment, deep clarity is
needed, so that you can see the body burning on the funeral pyre,
and you can also see the spirit moving away, farther away, to the
other shore.
If you dance and happily, gracefully sing... It will be difficult I
know - but not as difficult as you think. Once you do it, by and by
you will feel that it comes easy. The same energy that becomes gloom
starts moving, starts flowing and becomes a dance. In the beginning
you may feel a little hard, because you have completely forgotten
how to dance. You have forgotten how to dance in life, so how to
dance in death? I understand.
But once you start, the energy starts melting, and soon you will see
you are dancing. And the sadness has disappeared, and your eyes are
glistening with a new light and you will be able to realise
something. I am giving you a particular meditation for this night.
Vipassana has left - but don't miss this opportunity. Death opens a
door of the unknown. She will be moving into the unknown. You can
also have a glimpse. The door will open for her, but you can have a
glimpse of the door and her movement into the unknown. So don't be
sorry there. Don't be sad. If you want to be sad, then don't go
there, because your sadness will be a disturbance.
Go there dancing, happy, singing! And dance so totally that the
dancer disappears and only the dance remains.
And you are going to have a tremendous experience, a royal feast.
This is the way to give a send-off to a friend. And if you are
happy, you help the other person to move easily into the unknown. If
you are sad, you create obstructions; if you are sad, it becomes
difficult for the other to move away. Your sadness becomes heavy on
the other person. It becomes like a rock and hangs around the neck
of the other.
Be happy! And let the other person also feel that she is remembered,
that she is loved, that she is accepted and that she is leaving a
happiness behind her, a gladness behind her.
All have to go - man, woman, all. In India, women are not allowed,
but I would like everybody to go. Why should women be prohibited
from a beautiful and great experience? Death is for all. Even small
sannyasins, kids, if they want to go, take them with you. Let them
also face the truths. Let them also experience. Let them also start
thinking along the line that even death is not bad, that even death
is beautiful - so that they can accept.
Unless you accept death, you remain half, you remain part, you
remain lopsided. When you accept death also, you become balanced.
Then all is accepted - the day and the night, the summer and the
winter, both the light and darkness.
And remember always, my teaching is not for perfection. My teaching is for wholeness.
...Wholeness is holiness for me. All other sorts of holiness are sorts of illnesses, neurotic, because they are lopsided.
...
And if you think of wholeness, then death has to be given its due.
Life is beautiful; death is as beautiful as life. Life has its
blessings; death has its own blessings. Much flowers in life; but
much flowers in death also and something of that has flowered in
Vipassana.
Go there all - men, women, children - and let death also be a
festivity, a celebration. I would like you to not only teach how to
live - I would like you to also teach how to die. If you can give a
beautiful farewell to Vipassana, something deep within yourself
about death will settle. You will start accepting it. And you will
know deep down in your heart that death is also beautiful.
Remember, all that God gives has to be taken in deep gratefulness -
even death. Only then you become religious. A grateful acceptance of
all, unconditional acceptance of all. So this night I send you on a
pilgrimage. Death is one of the holiest of holies. And uncorrupted
by man, yet virgin. Don't miss this opportunity.
And Vipassana's death has been a blessing to her. Very few people
die that way today. People have completely forgotten how to live and
they have completely forgotten how to die. They don't know anything.
Their life is ugly - their death is ugly.
She has died very meditatively. Just before she entered the hospital
she had completed a Vipassana course - a course in deep buddhist
meditation. She had come to see me just before she entered hospital.
I had asked her how she had been feeling after the Vipassana
meditation. She wanted to say something, but could not. She tried
hard to find words but they won't come. Something deep has happened
to her and it is difficult to say anything when something deep
happens to you.
Something was happening that was beyond words. She has chosen a
right moment to die; she was very clever.
One has to die. But she has chosen a very right moment - immediately
after she completed her Vipassana course; actually after she had
earned the right to be called Vipassana. I had given her the name
knowing that this is going to be her path. She has chosen a right
moment to leave the world.
Go happily with deep prayer. If you cry, cry - but cry with
happiness. If tears come, let them, but let them be tears of prayer,
love, gratitude. Let them be tears of celebration.
Tears are not necessarily of sadness, remember. Tears have nothing
to do with sadness. They come only when something overpowers you,
overwhelms you. ...
So if you want to cry, cry, but let them have the quality of a song.
If tears come, let them flow, but let them have the quality of a
dance.
The hindu way of burning the body is very significant. It is
significant for the soul that has departed, because the soul can see
the body being burned, reduced to ashes. It helps detachment. It
gives a last shattering, a last hammering shock - because when a
person dies, it takes a few hours for him to recognise that he is
dead. And if the body is buried underground - as for Christians and
Mohammedans - then it takes many days for the person to recognise
that he is dead. With the hindu way of burning, immediately it
becomes a realisation that the body has been left.
Vipassana is going to be there. It is good for her that she can see
her body being burned, and turned dust unto dust. It is good for
her. It is good for you, because the same is going to happen to your
body also. Let it be a great meditation.
Now, I will not delay you any more. She has to go long, beyond the
stars.