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Graveyards : People don't want to become aware that death is. That's why graveyards are made outside the town

 

Graveyards 

 

 

We don’t talk about death; it is not good manners. We don’t talk about it, we avoid it. Death happens every day, everywhere it is happening, but we avoid it. The moment a man dies we are in a hurry to be finished with him. We make our graveyards out of the town so nobody goes there. And there also we make graves with marble and write beautiful lines on them. We go and put flowers on the grave. What are you doing? You are trying to decorate it a little.

 

In the West, how to hide death has become a profession. There are professionals who help you to avoid it, to make the dead body beautiful, as if it is still alive. What are you doing? – can this help in any way? Death is there. You are headed towards the graveyard; wherever you put it makes no difference – you will reach there. You are already on the way, you are standing in the queue waiting for the moment, just waiting in the queue to die. Where can you escape to from death?

 

-Osho, "The Hidden Harmony, #1“

 

 

It is always difficult to choose the new, but only those live who choose the new. To choose the old is to choose death, not life. To choose the familiar is to remain in the prison of the familiar, to choose the known is to avoid really the unknown that is knocking on the door. To choose the known is to reject God, because God is always unknown -- not only unknown, but unknowable.

 

God is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. God is always utterly new, unfamiliar, unmapped, unscheduled, uncalculated. God comes only as the unknown. And if you become afraid, if you shrink back, then you have to live in your so-called dark hole.

 

What is your past that you cling to? What is there to cling to, except that it is familiar? It is all misery, it is all tragedy. But people even cling to miseries if they are familiar, if they look friendly. Even if health is knocking on your door, you don't listen to the knock, you cling to your tuberculosis, to your cancer, because it is familiar; you have lived with it so long. It looks almost like a betrayal to leave it and become healthy.

 

That is why people are clinging to miseries. Even when opportunities arise when miseries can be dropped and the celebration can start, they continue to cling to the misery. They persist in it, they insist on it. Even if it drops they catch hold of it again and again. If one misery disappears, they create a similar misery immediately. They don't even give a little interval for joy to enter in their being.

 

But Remember, only those live who choose the new. Life means readiness to go into the uncalculated, unscheduled. Life means to be ready always to listen to the challenge that comes from the unknown source. It is dangerous, but to live is dangerous. The most secure and safe place in the world is the grave -- there, nothing ever happens.

 

In a small village where Mulla Nasrudin lives, the Municipal Committee was thinking of creating a wall around the graveyard. Mulla Nasrudin was also a member of the Committee. He stood up, and he said, 'There is no need.'

 

The whole Committee looked puzzled, because everybody was in favour of making a wall around the graveyard. People don't want to see graves and people don't want to see death. People don't want to become aware that death is. That's why graveyards are made outside the town, far away. When you have to go there, only then do you go there; otherwise it is better to avoid.

 

The village had grown bigger and the graveyard that used to be outside the town was no longer outside the town -- the town had grown and spread. So the whole Committee was agreeing. But Mulla said, 'There is no need.'

 

And the president asked, 'Why do you say that there is no need?'

 

He said, 'For two reasons. One: those who are outside -- they don't want to go in so they don't need any wall to prevent them. And, two: those who are inside -- they cannot come out. So what is the point of making a wall? The wall is needed only to prevent either those who are in from coming out or to prevent those who are out from coming in. Those who are out, they don't want to go in; they go only in utter helplessness. When they have to go, when they have to be carried by four persons, then they go. And once they are in they cannot come out -- nobody has ever heard of anybody coming out. It is pointless!'

 

The grave is the most safe and secure place in the world, because nothing new will ever happen there.

 

Remember it: don't become a grave.

 

-Osho, "The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1, #8, Q5“

 

 

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Osho Dictionary

A Spiritual Dictionary for the Here and Now

List of Articles
No. Category Subject
1031 A Absolute : A man of truth is always relative.
1030 A Abstinence : You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality.
1029 A Abstractions : Because you can't love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself. Avoid abstractions.
1028 A Absurd : The absurd is nothing but another name of God
1027 A Absurdity : Collect as many absurdities in your life as possible.
1026 A Accept yourself : Accept yourself as you are, and accept totally, unconditionally. That is the way God wants you to be
1025 A Accept Yourself : This is the first step of Unio Mystica: be one with yourself.
1024 A Acceptance : Accepting is another name for Let Go
1023 A Acceptance : If somebody hits you, bow down your head, accept it with gratitude.
1022 A Accidental : Become a little more conscious. See what is happening.
1021 A Accidents : Consciousness can be, and without content. So that accident was a blessing.
1020 A Accidents : life goes ahead and your mind is past-oriented
1019 A Acharya : He knows exactly what he’s teaching, but not on his own authority.
1018 A Act : You will create a chain of reactions and you will get into karma.
1017 A Acting : The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into an acting.
1016 A Action : You have to use action to attain non-action.
1015 A Action and Activity : Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response
1014 A Active Meditation : All traditional methods have become irrelevant.
1013 A Activity : Action is not activity; activity is not action.
1012 A Activity : Activity has utility, action is pure joy, pure beauty.
1011 A Acupuncture : Acupuncture deals with the cause. Never deal with the effect
1010 A Adam's Apple : Adam became knowledgeable, hence the fall. So knowledge is the fall.
1009 A Adam's Apple : I am against all kinds of enforced things.
1008 A Admiration : One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself.
1007 A Adultery : The real meaning of adultery is making love while you are not in love.
1006 A Advaita : Advaita means not two
1005 A Advaita : Existence Is Advaita
1004 A Advertising : It hypnotized you.
1003 A Advice : Listen, but don’t follow.
1002 A Ageing (Aging) : You are just pure consciousness
1001 A Aging : Change beautifies everything.
1000 A Ah : Ah, this cake is delicious
999 A AIDS : Perversion requires the basic condition that you are fed up with changing women, you want something new.
998 A Alchemy : How to change the negative into the positive
997 A Alcohol : Nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.
996 A Alertness : If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware
995 A Alienation : He is an uprooted tree. He has forgotten how to relate with existence
994 A Alone : The person who is not able to be alone cannot be together with somebody, because he has no individuality.
993 A Aloneness : Rejoicing in Your Own Aloneness
992 A Aloneness : We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone
991 A Ambition : Nothing kills love more than Ambitiousness
990 A Ambition : The result of an inferiority complex
989 A Ambition : The root cause
988 A Amen : It simply means "Yes, Lord, yes. Let thy will be done.
987 A Analysis : The beauty is something more, hence in analysis it disappears.
986 A Androgyny : Where your man and woman inside meet and mingle and disappear into each other.
985 A Angels : You are simply creating belief systems to cling to.
984 A Anger : Anger is just a mental vomit.
983 A Anger : If anger rages within, shout, cry, jump, talk, babble, do whatever you please
982 A Anguish : Anguish is, in short, the quest of who you are.
981 A Anguish : God is not responsible for your stupidity. It is your own work.
980 A Anguish : The anguish of not knowing oneself
979 A Answer : To Be Questionless is the Answer
978 A Anti Christ : The people who established Christianity, they are the Antichrist.
977 A Apology : We don't try to reform ourselves, we only try to reform our image.
976 A Art : If it leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
975 A Art : To be a painter, you have to drop the ego
974 A Art, Objective : Objective art means something that helps you to become centered
973 A Asleep : Man is asleep – man lives in a deep slumber
972 A Assertion (Assertive) : Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.
971 A Astrology : Astrology is an investigation into the possibility that whatever is happening anywhere in the universe also affects man.
970 A Astrology : The Science of Cosmic Oneness
969 A Atheism : Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers.
968 A Attachment : Attachment means clinging to something, wanting it the way it is forever.
967 A Attention : If you pay much attention to suffering, you help it to grow. If you pay much attention to happiness, you help it to grow.
966 A Aum : The primordial sound of which the whole universe consists
965 A Aum : The symbol of the seventh body
964 A Austerity : Austerity does not mean torture; austerity means a simple life, an austere life.
963 A Authenticity : To be authentic means to be true to oneself.
962 A Authoritative : Authoritarian People are suffering from Inferiority Complex
961 A Autohypnosis : You create illnesses! You believe in them.
960 A Average : You will drop your averageness. It is just forced on you.
959 A Avoidance : The harder you try to avoid it, the more focused you become on it.
958 A Awareness : The Seed of Godliness in You
957 B Babies : All babies are beautiful, but all grown-ups are not beautiful.
956 B Bachelorhood : she was also looking for a perfect husband!
955 B Baggage : On the highest peaks, one has to be weightless.
954 B Balance : Witnessing brings balance.
953 B Bardo : Between These Two Dreams
952 B Beauty : The deeper you become, the more beautiful you are.
951 B Beggars : The meeting of a world conqueror with a beggar
950 B Beginners : The Zen person always keeps the beginner's mind
949 B Behaviorism : He lives in such cowardly ways, he is so afraid of anything new.
948 B Belief : The believer is not a seeker.
947 B Betrayal : There is only one betrayal: and that is to betray one's own life.
946 B Bibles : People become interested only when they are almost in their graves.
945 B Biography : After Self-Knowledge there Is No Autobiography
944 B Birthdays : One is never born and never dies; both are illusions.
943 B Bitterness : We are bitter because we are not what we should be.
942 B Black hole : Black hole is like Buddha’s concept of emptiness
941 B Blame : The whole responsibility is yours, don't blame anybody
940 B Blindness : Don't carry the books
939 B Bliss : Bliss needs great courage
938 B Bliss : Blissfulness is our birthright
937 B Body : The body has a great wisdom in it.
936 B Boiling Point : They don't have intensity. They live only so-so, lukewarm
935 B Books : Beware of knowledge. It is so cheap to become knowledgeable.
934 B Boredom : A Buddha is not bored, A Jesus is not bored
933 B Boredom : Boredom comes out of insensitivity.
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