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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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
This was my assurance given to
many friends in the previous life: that when truth is attained, I will inform
them.
*Note: Bodhidharma: the mystic who brought
Buddhism from India to China
*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."
