Nature has a beautiful arrangement: with each death, a thick layer of forgetfulness comes over your memories. You are carrying all the memories of all your lives. But a small human being finds it so difficult to live with a small conscious mind of one life–if so many lives burst upon him, he is bound to be insane. It is a natural protection. It happened.... I...

Question Osho, My previous life with my mother, father, sister and brother was a period filled with unhappiness. why did i choose to be born into this family? Prem Joshua, you have not chosen, because you died unconsciously. How can you choose? If YOU had chosen, you certainly would not have chosen such a family. It was unconscious. You moved into the womb ro...

Question 2: Beloved Osho, Occasionally, a strong feeling comes over me that exactly the situation i am in at that moment has happened before. others tell me of experiencing the same feeling and that it has been termed, ‘deja vu’. I have always wondered what this experience was and its connection with meditation. can you help me to understand it? Anand Somen, ...

Something Belonging to Eternity Question 1 Beloved Osho, A few months ago my friend and I were visiting his dying father. Lots of people were around, his body was about finished. To most people he was indifferent, but when everyone left he suddenly opened his eyes and told us, “I feel like I have two bodies; one body is sick and the other is completely health...

Question : Osho, Earlier on you were talking about national characteristics and you were just talking now about the last desire at the moment of death, so if someone gets reborn into some nationality, does that whole national history become part of the body, of the mind, or how does it connect? Mostly it never happens, or very rarely. A Dutch is born again in...

Osho Quotes on Reincarnation Hindus believe in God and the soul. Jainas don't believe in God at all but only in the soul. And Buddhists don't believe in the soul or God either. But about reincarnation all three agree -- even Buddhists agree, who don't believe in the soul. A very strange thing...then who reincarnates? Even THEY could not deny the phenomenon of...

Question 1 You said that if one were talking about the body you would say that the body was death-oriented and if one were talking about the soul you would say, "you were never born at all." buddha has said of the soul, "it was just a bubble which is now no more. i myself am not there, so where will i go?" then what is it that is immortal and who is unborn? T...

Question : Osho, When you said that if we don’t achieve total consciousness in this life, we will have to start from the very beginning again, and go through the whole evolution of mankind one more time, I was very touched. Is it possible that we will totally lose these few glimpses of light, beauty, and consciousness that we have got through being sannyasins...

Question 5 If a Tirthankara desires to be born, Can he take a physical Body? Now this is a different matter altogether. If a tirthankara wishes to be reborn a very interesting happening takes place: that is, before death he does not discard his fourth body. There is a way and a method of doing this, and that is by having the desire to be a tirthankara. So whe...

The past exists nowhere. Many people write to me, "Give us methods so that we can remember our past lives." What are you going to do? Even if you remember that you were Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, how is that going to help in any way? It will create more complications. You are already in such a mess! That's why nature closes the door every time you die....

Where Does Your Body End? Question 5 : Does the soul leave the body when you die? Where does it go? This whole way of thinking – that something remains and something leaves – is fallacious. The gross body that we know is just a seed, the outer mask. There are also subtle bodies which continue to surround your soul even when it is leaving. These bodies are als...

Only Life Goes Beyond Death LIFE is an opportunity. You can use it, you can misuse it, or you can simply waste it. It depends on you. Except you, nobody is going to be responsible. Responsibility is of the individual. Once you realize this then you start becoming alert, aware. Then you start living in a totally different way. Then, in fact, for the first time...

Bardo : Between These Two Dreams Question 1 Osho, I’ve always been fascinated by the state of bardo as described in ancient Tibetan scriptures. Could you say something about this? Bardo is a simple method but with great significance. Only people who have meditated a little bit in their lives can be benefited by it, and Tibet was one of the countries where alm...

Question : Do you think some of those ghosts might still be kicking around underneath? There are no ghosts. There was only one ghost — the holy ghost — and he too finished only by making a poor girl pregnant. Then what happened to the holy ghost? He must have committed suicide, thinking of the consequences that followed his making the woman pregnant, which wa...

Question 3: You say that millions of lives and millions of years of natural evolution can be avoided through reaching total awareness and total freedom can it not be argued that karma, with its natural forces of cause and effect, should not be interfered with by any shortcuts, or is it also the way of divinity to bring such a possibility within the reach of t...

When you act out of nothingness, you respond; it is no longer a reaction. It has truth, it has validity in it, authenticity. It is existential. It is immediate, spontaneous, simple, innocent. And this action does not create any karma. Remember, the word karma means action, a particular action. Not all actions create karma, remember. Buddha lived after his enl...

Question 1 One friend has asked: one can die fully conscious, but how can one be in full consciousness at birth? Actually, death and birth are not two events, they are two ends of the same phenomenon -- just like two sides of the same coin. If a man can have one side of a coin in his hand, the other side will be in his hand automatically. It's not possible to...

Osho on Gautam Buddha Birth as Maitreya Question : You have said that Buddha attained Mahaparinirvana, but also that Buddha Is to come once again in human form and will be known as Maitreya. How is It possible to take on a human form after reaching nirvana? Please explain this. This is somewhat difficult; therefore, I did not speak about it yesterday. It requ...

Question : A friend has asked: what is the relation between meditation and jati-smaran, past life remembering? Jati-smaran means: a method of recalling past lives. It is a way to remember our previous existences. It is a form of meditation. It is a specific application of meditation. For example, one might ask, "What is a river, and what is a canal? Our answe...

The idea of reincarnation, Christianity does not accept it, Mohammedanism does not accept it, nor does Judaism accept it; it is only accepted by the religions that have been born in India. They may differ on every aspect of life, but on one point they are absolutely in agreement. And it is not an agreement of one day – for thousands of years they have agreed ...

When you act out of nothingness, you respond; it is no longer a reaction. It has truth, it has validity in it, authenticity. It is existential. It is immediate, spontaneous, simple, innocent. And this action does not create any karma. Remember, the word karma means action, a particular action. Not all actions create karma, remember. Buddha lived after his enl...

Question 1: I heard you say that we sometimes carry other people's wounds. What does this mean? Is another person's wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? if we can so easily accept someone else's wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood? It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to ans...

Question 3: Would it be possible for you to describe what happens to the soul after death, where it moves about, what it does and in what condition it is during the interval between the giving up of one body and the taking of another? In this connection, you had previously discussed the freedom of the soul to take birth whenever it so desired. please enlighte...

Question 1: I heard you say that we sometimes carry other people’s wounds. What does this mean? Is another person’s wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? If we can so easily accept someone else’s wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood? It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to ans...

Question 1 Osho, What do you have to say about the law of karma? I have very little to say about it -- but it will still take two and a half hours! The law of karma, in the first place, is not a law. That word gives it an aroma as if it is something scientific, like the law of gravitation. It is merely a hope, not a law at all. It has been hoped for centuries...

on Death “The first thing I would like to tell you about death is that there is no bigger lie than death. And yet, death appears to be true. It not only appears to be true but even seems like the cardinal truth of life–it appears as if the whole of life is surrounded by death. Whether we forget about it, or become oblivious to it, everywhere death remains clo...

on Worthy Womb and Conditions for Higher Soul to take Birth Question 2: What are the distinguishing features that make a womb worthy enough to receive a higher soul, and what are the characteristics of a Womb in which an Inferior soul may enter? What preparations are necessary in order that a higher Soul may descend? How are the preparations made? As compared...

Question 2 Osho, While discussing mahavira, you had said that mahavira had achieved total self-realization in his previous birth and that he took another birth out of compassion only in order to express and tell to others what he had seen and known. similarly, for krishna also you said that he was fully enlightened from his very birth. Previously, when i had ...

Question 5 What is the law of karma? It is not in fact a law, because there is nobody behind it as a lawgiver. On the contrary, it is intrinsic to existence itself. It is the very nature of life: whatsoever you sow, you reap. But it is complex, it is not so simple, it is not so obvious. To make it more clear, try to understand it in a psychological way, becau...