Resurrection

 

 

When Jesus was crucified, after his crucifixion he resurrected, he came back to life. This resurrection is not an historical event. This resurrection is a very profound symbol, it is poetry. It is simply saying that death cannot happen to a person like Jesus. Death happens to the unenlightened. Those who believe that they are the body, they die. How can those who have known that which is bodiless within the body die? For them even the cross is a symbol of a new life. For them even the cross is a throne. They do not die. They live in the nectar of immortality. They die in the nectar of immortality. Their nectar of immortality continues, within them the stream of this nectar goes on flowing…if they are in a body then in the body, or if they are not in a body then outside of the body.

 

But people are engaged in trying to prove that it is a historical fact – and then there is trouble. I told you recently that when a snake bit Mahavira, that milk came out. There are Jainas who try to prove that this milk coming out is a historical fact. They are fooling themselves and they are inviting others to be foolish. This much is obvious: milk is a symbol of love. When a child comes into the mother’s womb, in a manifestation of her love the mother’s breasts fill with milk to nourish the child. The mother begins to flow for the child in the form of a stream of milk. The child begins to receive life from the mother’s milk. Love is life-giving! It is merely a symbol in this story that even when a snake bit Mahavira then there was only compassion and love for it in Mahavira’s heart. How to say this as poetry? In poetic form it is said: When Mahavira was bitten milk came out, not blood. Blood should have come out, but milk came out. This is poetry. It is beautiful poetry, if you take it as poetry, but if you stubbornly insist that it is a scientific statement then you are being idiotic.

 

We have created stories around all these unique people and all these stories are very lovely. Take these stories as indications, pointers, don’t be concerned with whether they are factual or not. There are a few hints in them, and if you grasp the hints the stories will drop away and you will start on a pilgrimage.

 

-Osho, "Die O Yogi Die, #6“

 

 

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The ego can exist only through the memory: who you are, from where you come, to whom you belong, the country, the race, the religion, the family, the tradition, and all the hurts, wounds, pleasures – all that has happened in the past. All that has happened is the ego. And you are that to whom all this has happened. This distinction has to be understood: you are that to whom all has happened, and the ego is that which has happened. The ego is around you; you are in the center, egoless.

 

A child is born absolutely fresh and young – no past, no ego. That’s why children are so beautiful. They don’t have any past, they are young and fresh. They cannot say I, because from where will they bring the I? The I has to develop gradually. They will get educated, they will get awards, punishments, they will be appreciated, condemned – then the I will gather.

 

A child is beautiful because the ego is not there. An old man becomes ugly, not because of old age but because of too much past, too much of the ego. An old man can also become again beautiful, even more beautiful than a child, if he can drop the ego – then a second childhood, then a rebirth.

 

This is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus. It is not an historical fact, it is a parable. Jesus is crucified and then he resurrects. The man who was crucified is no more; that was the son of the carpenter, Jesus. Now Jesus is dead, crucified. A new entity arises out of that. Out of this death a new life is born. This is Christ – not the son of a particular carpenter in Bethlehem, not a Jew, not even a man. This is Christ, something new – egoless.

 

The same will happen to you whenever your ego is on the cross. Whenever your ego is crucified there is a resurrection, a rebirth. You are born again, and this childhood is eternal, because this is a rebirth of the spirit, not of the body. Now you will never become old. Always and always you will be fresh and young – as fresh as the dewdrop in the morning, as fresh as the first star in the night. You will always remain fresh, young, a child, innocent – because this is a resurrection of the spirit. This always happens in a moment.

 

Ego is time – the more time, the more ego. Ego needs time. If you penetrate deeply you may even be able to conceive that time only exists because of the ego. Time is not part of the physical world around you; time is part of the psychic world within you, the mind-world. Time exists just as a space for the ego to evolve and grow. Room is needed; time gives the room.

 

If it is said to you that this is the last moment of your life, next moment you are going to be shot dead, suddenly time disappears. You feel very uneasy. You are still alive, but suddenly you feel as if you are dying, and you can’t think what to do. Even to think becomes difficult, because even for thinking time is needed, future is needed. There is no tomorrow – then where to think, how to desire, how to hope? There is no time. Time is finished.

 

The greatest agony that can happen to a man happens when his death is fixed and he cannot avoid it, it is certain. A person who is sentenced, imprisoned, waiting for his death – the death is fixed – he cannot do anything about it. After a certain period he will die; beyond that time there is no tomorrow for him. Now he cannot desire, he cannot think, he cannot project, he cannot even dream. The barrier is always there. Then much agony follows. That agony is for the ego. Because ego cannot exist without time – ego breathes in time; time is breath for the ego – the more time, the more possibility for the ego.

 

-Osho, "My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, #5“

 

 

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Jesus dies as Son of God. And the gap is very, very tiny. In just a split second he changed from being man into God. The moment complaint changes into trust, you change from human into God. He becomes prayer. “Thy will be done.” Now he is no more. Now he has no will of his own.

 

And then comes the seventh valley, which is the last, the ultimate – the valley of hymns, the valley of celebration.

 

Rebirth, resurrection, happens in the seventh valley. That is the meaning of the Christian idea of resurrection – that Christ is reborn, reborn in the body of glory, reborn in the body of light, reborn in the body divine. Now there is no positive, no negative. Now there is no duality. One is one. Unity has arisen – what Hindus call advait. The dual has disappeared. One has come home.

 

-Osho, "Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol. 2, #1“

 

 

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I am a teacher of life, not of death; but I can teach you only if you are ready even to die for life. Already you are so dead, and still for your whole life you believe that you are alive. But this life is lukewarm. Hence, in the meditation I try to help you, to push you deeper into death because, as far as I am concerned, death is a fiction. The whole effort is that as you try to die more and more, you will find life asserting itself. It is a very deep dialectical process. The more you try to die, the more you will find yourself fresh and young and newly born.

 

I teach resurrection. Jesus should not have the monopoly of being resurrected; it is everybody’s right. You don’t have to hang on a cross – you can simply die here. You can just leave the body and go in fearlessly, because you have the eternal treasure of being.

 

There is no question of losing anything; relax totally so that all energy moves inward, gathers inward, becomes a concentrated phenomenon. That’s why you are feeling more alive. I want you to be more alive, alive forever, because that is your nature; only recognition is needed. Meditation is simply a method to recognize the eternity of life and the fiction of death.

 

-Osho, "Zen: The Quantum Leap from Mind to No-Mind, #8“