Old Age

 

 

One has to become old, and when you are becoming old reluctantly, old age becomes ugly. When you are becoming old joyously, old age has a beauty of its own, a grandeur of its own, a ripeness, a maturity, a centering. Young people have nothing compared to the experienced, who have lived life and who know it is all just a game.

 

The moment a person comes to the point where the whole life is just a game, his old age is so beautiful, so graceful; no young person can be compared to it. His white hairs will look like white snow -- just on the highest peak of the mountains. He will die with joy. He has lived his life, now he is entering into a new phase -- death. He will not be reluctant.

 

If he was not reluctant for old age, he will not be reluctant for death. If he accepted old age joyously, he will accept death also dancingly. He will go with death dancing.

 

If a man can go joyously with death, there is no death for him, he enters into eternal life. Then there is no birth, no death. He has gone beyond the circle of birth and death.

 

-Osho, "Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons, #3, Q1“