Meditation means surrender, total letting go. As soon as someone surrenders himself he finds himself in the hands of divinity. If we cling to ourselves we cannot be one with the almighty. When the waves disappear, they become the ocean itself. Let us try some experiments in order to understand what is meant by meditation.

 

Sit in such a way that no one touches you. Close your eyes slowly, and keep your body loose. Relax completely so that there is no strain, no tension in the body at all. Now imagine that a river is flowing very fast, with tremendous force and sound, between two mountains. Observe it and dive in… but do not swim.

 

Let your body float without any movement.Now you are moving with the river – just floating. There is nowhere to reach, no destination, so there is no question of swimming. Feel as if a dry leaf is floating effortlessly in the river. Experience it clearly so that you can know what is meant by ”surrender,” by ”total letting go.”

 

If you have understood how to float, now discover how to die and how to be dissolved completely. Keep your eyes closed, let your body become loose and relax completely. Observe that a pyre is burning. There is a pile of woodsticks that have been set afire and the flames of the pyre seem to be reaching toward the sky.

 

And remember one more thing: you are not just observing the burning pyre, you have been placed on it. All your friends and relatives are standing around. It is better to experience this moment of death consciously, as one day or the other it is sure to come. With the flames growing higher and higher, feel that your body is burning. Within a short while the fire will be put out by itself.

 

People will disperse and the cemetery will be empty and silent again. Feel it, and you will see that everything has become quiet and nothing but the ashes remains. You have dissolved completely. Remember this experience of being dissolved, because meditation is also a kind of death. Keep your eyes closed now and relax completely. You do not have to do anything.

 

There is no necessity to do anything: before you were, things were as they are, and they will be the same even after you die. Now feel that whatever is happening is happening. Feel the ”suchness” of it. It is so: it can only be this way; there is no other way possible, so why resist? By ”suchness” is meant ”no resistance.”

 

There is no expectation that anything be other than what is. The grass is green, the sky is blue, the waves of the ocean roar, birds sing, crows are crowing…. There is no resistance from you because life is such. Suddenly a transformation takes place. What was normally considered to be a disturbance now seems to be amiable. You are not against anything; you are happy with everything as it is.

 

So the first thing you had to do was to float, rather than swim, in the ocean of existence. For one who is ready to float, the river itself takes him to the ocean. If we do not resist, life itself takes us to the divinity. Secondly, you had to dissolve yourself, rather than save yourself, from death. What we want to save is sure to die, and what is going to be there eternally will be there without our effort.

 

The one who is ready to die is able to open his doors to welcome the divinity, but if you keep your doors closed – because of the fear of death – you do so at the cost of not attaining divinity. Meditation is to die. The last thing you had to experience was ”suchness.” Only an acceptance of both the flowers and the thorns can bring you peace. Peace, after all, is the fruit of total acceptance.

 

Peace will come only to him who is ready to accept even the absence of peace. So close your eyes, let your body be loose, and feel as if there is no life in the body. Feel as if your body is relaxing. Go on feeling this, and within a short time you will know that you are not the master of the body. Every cell, every nerve of the body will feel relaxed – as if the body does not exist.

 

Leave the body alone as if it is floating on the river. Let the river of life take you anywhere it wants to, and float upon it just like a dry leaf.Now feel that your breath is gradually becoming quiet, silent. As your breathing becomes silent, you will feel that you are being dissolved. You will feel as if you are on the burning pyre, and you have been burnt completely. Not even ashes have remained.

 

Now feel the sound of the birds, the sun’s rays, the waves of the ocean, and just be a witness to them – receptive and yet aware, watchful. The body is relaxed, breathing is silent, and you are in ”suchness”; you are just a witness to all this. Gradually you will feel a transformation within, and then suddenly something will become silent inside. The mind has become silent and empty. Feel this: be a witness to it, and experience it.

 

The river has taken away your floating body, the pyre had burnt it, and you have been a witness to it. In this nothingness, a blissfulness enters which we call divinity. Breathe slowly two or three times now, and with each breath you will feel freshness, peace and a blissful pleasure. Now open your eyes slowly and come back from meditation. Try to do this experiment nightly before going to bed and go to sleep right afterward. Gradually, your sleep will turn into meditation.

 

I have seen many people die. They die like beggars, clinging; they don’t want to die because they have not lived yet, and death has come. But when there was life, they wasted it. Now that death has knocked on their doors they have become aware of the wastage of life.

 

But a man who has lived totally will open the doors, will welcome death, because death is not your enemy. It is simply a change of house: from one body into another, from one form into another or, ultimately, from form to the formless life that surrounds the earth. A religious man not only lives religiously, he dies religiously.

 

A man of art lives artfully, and lives not only artfully, but dies too with great art. One Zen master was asking his disciples – his time of death had come – and he said, ”Before I go I want to discover some unique way to die. You know me. I don’t want any repeating, copying, being just a follower of somebody. Tell me, is there some way that I can die uniquely?”

 

One man suggested, ”Perhaps you can die sitting in a lotus posture?” But others said, ”Many sages have died sitting in a lotus posture, so that is not new.” Somebody said, ”You can die standing.” And they were talking as if it was just a playfulness – it should be playfulness – but one man objected. He said, ”I know about a sage who died standing.”

 

Then somebody else suggested, ”Then there is only one way. You stand on your head! Die standing on your head, I don’t think anybody has done that before.” The master said, ”That seems to be good, so goodbye fellows.” And he stood on his head, and died.

 

Now the disciples were at a loss. They knew what to do with a dead body when the dead body was lying on the bed, but they had no precedents of a man standing on his head, and dead. ”What should we do with him? And if he was so unique, the old fellow should have told us also what we should do afterwards.”

 

Somebody suggested, ”His elder sister is also a great master. She is a nun, lives in the nearby monastery. It is better to call her because we may do something inappropriate, and that doesn’t seem right to do something inappropriate to your own master when he is dead.”

 

Somebody ran; and the sister, older than the man, came with great anger and she was shouting from the door, ”He has been a nuisance all his life, never behaved the way people are expected to behave. But at least I never thought that in dying also he will be a nuisance.

 

Where is he?” So the crowd gave way to her, and she told him, ”Bokoju, you idiot! You have become enlightened, but you don’t forget your mischievousness. Get down from this posture and lie down on the bed in a proper way.”

 

Bokoju had to; an elder sister cannot be disobeyed. The people could not believe it. They had checked in every way – his breathing had gone, his heart had stopped. He came back and he lay down on the bed and he said to his sister, ”Okay, you can go now, I will die in a proper way.”

 

The sister went away, and he died in a proper way. They again checked. It was exactly the same: no breathing, no heartbeat. The man must have been waiting at the fourth stage, knowing or watching from that depth what his disciples would do now. And seeing them in a great dilemma, he must have enjoyed it immensely.

 

To die in such a beautiful way, as if you are playing, should be a simple thing for all those who have lived perfectly and totally. Bokoju made death also a beautiful experience, not only for himself but for others too.

 

- Osho, "Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance, #16"