Written by Prem Shunyo
Sex and Death
It is strange to me that Osho has been called “The Sex Guru” by people who have obviously never read or heard what Osho has to say about sex. He has never condemned sex, the way religious leaders always have, and that seems to be the only reason that he is criticized. From magazines and newspapers that I see, it seems to me that the world is obsessed with sex, and I presume that to use the word sex in a newspaper headline guarantees readership.There is a fine line between licentiousness and allowing natural energies to move with totality. This is where Osho has the courage to lead people, along this fine line.Osho’s work to help us towards enlightenment is to allow sex, because it is natural, but his emphasis has always been on transcendence. Transcendence cannot come from a repressed mind, so expression has to be the first step. It is so simple.”…With meditation you will be opening up higher doors of your consciousness, your superconscious. And the energy always needs movement, it cannot remain static. And these new areas will be far more enchanting.
“The sexual area you have experienced. It was good as far as biology goes, but it was an ordinary experience available to all the animals, to all men, to all birds. It was nothing special, nothing unique. But if meditation makes a way towards superconsciousness, and energy is available, that energy will automatically start moving through the new channel that has opened up.”That is what I mean by transformation.” ÉOsho (The Transmission of the Lamp)As a Westerner, I have been filled with the idea that when sex goes, then everything is finished. Osho has been speaking to us and trying to explain that in the East it is a totally different concept. “In the East when sex is disappearing it is a time for rejoicing, whereas in the West if sex is disappearing, it is a calamity.”It has to be that one day the sexual urge, or urgency, disappears and what is left is a playfulness and lightness about sex. No longerpulled in a blind fever towards somebody, it is a wonderful thought that one day it will be possible to be free in one’s choice whether to play or not. And I would hope that this can happen before the body is worn out and sexual energy becomes cerebral. I think it can.While travelling in Kathmandu I asked Osho this question, and I find his response so fascinating that I give it to you whole:”Beloved Master,I have had a strong feeling of sex and death over the last few weeks. Is it necessary that I understand why?”Osho’s answer:”It is always necessary to understand how your mind is functioning, how your heart is doing, what is happening to your interior world. Trying to understand it will give you a certain distance from those things, and an awareness that they may be there but you are not identified with them. That is the great alchemy of understanding. Try to understand everything within yourself. In the very fact that you are trying to understand, you become separate from it; it becomes an object. And you can never become an object, you are always the subject; it is not possible to change your subjectivity into an object. So that gives a good distance between you and your feelings, whatever they are. That is one thing.”The second thing: this distance will give you a possibility of understanding what is happening to you. Nothing happens without any cause. And sometimes there are things which are very fundamental. For example, the question is one of the most fundamental questions – the connection between sex and death. And if you can see it clearly, slowly the distance between death and sex will disappear and they will become almost one energy.”Perhaps sex is death in installments.”And death is sex wholesale “But there is certainly one energy functioning at both corners. Sex is the beginning of life, and death is the end of the same life; so they are the twoends of one energy, two poles of one energy. They cannot be unconnected.
“Death and sex remind me of one spider found in Africa, where death and sex come very close to each other. In man there is a distance of seventy years, eighty years; but in that particular species of spider there is no distance. The male spider makes love only once in his life. While he is making love, the moment he comes to an orgasmic state, the female starts eating him. But he is in such euphoria, he does not care that he is being eaten. By the time his orgasm is finished, he is also finished.
“Death and sex are so closeÉbut whether they are close or distant, they are not different energies. So one can feel them arising together. It is good to see them together, it is a great understanding – because people don’t see it. People are almost blind, they never connect death with sex. Perhaps it is an unconscious fear that prevents them connecting the two, because if they start connecting death with sex they may become afraid of sex itself – and that is dangerous for its biological purpose. It is better for biology that they don’t connect them.
“It has been noted that whenever people are beheaded – there are still a few countries where this happens – the strangest thing observed is: the moment the man is beheaded, he ejaculates – without exception. It is strange, because while his neck is being broken, is this the time to ejaculate? But it is not within his capacity to control. When death is happening to him, when life is leaving him, it is natural that his sexual energy also leaves. It was part of the whole phenomenon. There is no point in it remaining in his body.
“The question is significant. It does not mean that you are going to die. It simply means your sexual energy is coming to its highest peak; hence you are feeling death also. It would not be felt if the sexual energy was being released.
“Whoever has asked the question must not be making love. Energy is accumulating, coming to such intensity that it is automatic to remember death. Death, if you die consciously, brings you the greatest orgasm you have ever had in your life.
“By the way, woman lives longer than man lives, is healthier than man, is more resistant to disease, does not go mad as easily as man, does not commit suicide so easily. The reason may be that her sexual energy is negative. The positive energy is the active force; the negative energy is the absorbing force.
“Perhaps because of this negative, absorbing energy, she has a healthier body, is more resistant to disease, and lives longer. And if biology could manage to get her free from her monthly periods, she could live even longer and healthier. She could really become the stronger sex.
“So the idea of sex and death arising together, simply shows that the sexual energy is accumulating – positive or negative. And negative energy can be accumulated longer.
“In fact, I have been watching Jaina monks and nuns, who are perhaps the most sincere people in what they are doing. It may be stupid, but their sincerity is beyond doubt. The nuns seem to take it quite easily, remaining celibate. But the monks get into tremendous difficulty – the same difficulty as Christian monks or any other monks.
“Negative energy simply means it is more silent, waiting for the active energy so that it can absorb it. But it has no active force of its own. These are the reasons why I am against things like lesbianism. It is simply stupid – two negative energies trying to reach to some orgasmic peak. It is simply that either they are pretending, or what they are calling their orgasm is only clitoral, it is not vaginal. And clitoral orgasm is nothing compared to the vaginal orgasm. Clitoral orgasm is just a kind of foreplay. It can help to bring the vaginal orgasm, but it cannot replace it.
“It is really very amazing that such an intimate thing as lovemaking has remained in darkness. I am making the statement – and this is for the first time in the whole of history that anyone has made this statement – that clitoral orgasm can be of immense help as foreplay; otherwise the psychologists have been at a loss as to what to make of it, because it has no biological function. To avoid the question, many psychologists even have denied that there is any vaginal orgasm, there is only clitoral orgasm.
“Man’s orgasm is so quick that he cannot create the vaginal orgasm in that small period of time – a few seconds. But if clitorial orgasm is created just as foreplay, it is creating a situation for the vaginal orgasm to happen. It has already started: the clitoral orgasm has triggered the process in the body.
“But men pay no attention to the clitoral orgasm, because their orgasm can happen easily only with vaginal contact. They are interested only in their own orgasm, and when they are finished they don’t think about the woman at all.
“Lesbianism is spreading in the woman’s liberation movement because it is giving them clitoral orgasm; but that is another stupidity because it is simply foreplay. It is as if you had the preface of the book but the book is missing. So you go on reading the preface as long as you want, again and again, but you don’t go into the book at all. If the woman is waiting and waiting, she also accumulates a negative energy which she absorbs. If it is too much, then the idea of death can come, because having love in this state, and having a really beautiful orgasmic feeling, will give her an insight into what happens at death.
“There is nothing to fear in it; nothing is destroyed. It is the ultimate peak of your life.
“If you have lived your life unconsciously, in misery, in suffering, then before death comes, you are bound to go into a coma. So you don’t experience the orgasm, or the awareness that death is not happening to you, to your being, but is happening only to the body, to the vehicle that you have been using up to now.
“If the question is from a man, the same is to be understood. But rarely can a man come to such a peak that he can start thinking of death. His energy is so dynamic, active, that before he comes to such a peak, the energy is released. So my feeling is the question is from a woman.
“And nobody has listened to the woman. Nobody has even taken care about what she feels, how she feels. One thing has been understood by man for centuries – in India we have paintings, statues, depicting the phenomenon – that man has felt in woman a certain kind of death. That is a misunderstanding. It is not in the woman, it is in your sexual energy itself.
“But that’s how men always project things; they cannot see that their own sexual energy brings
them close to death. And they cannot see very clearly because their sexual energy never comes to such a peak that it reminds them of death. But women, if listened to, have many things of wisdom to say about the phenomenon.
“The wise woman has been destroyed by Christianity. They were burned in their thousands in the Middle Ages. The word ‘witch’ simply means a wise woman, but because it was so condemned, even the word has become condemnatory; otherwise it is a compliment. It is equal to the man of wisdom. All over the world there were wise women, and there were matters into which only a wise woman could give an insight.
“The statues in India, and the paintings, are very strange if you don’t understand the phenomenon. For example, Shiva is lying down, and his wife, Shivani, is dancing on his chest with a naked sword in one hand, and with a recently cut head in the other hand; she has a garland of heads, blood is oozing out of all the heads and she is in a mad dance. It seems she will kill Shiva. That dance is so mad, and the woman is in such a mad state, there is no hope for Shiva.
“What I have been saying is related to such experiences. In the East, the woman has been listened to. There has never been anything like what happened in the West – killing and burning women. Women of wisdom have always been listened to, and their wisdom has been absorbed – because they are half of man. Man’s wisdom is half; unless the woman’s wisdom is also absorbed, the wisdom cannot become a whole. She has to be asked what the experience is from her side.
“The woman, in many orgasmic experiences, particularly in the East, has felt death very close, almost hovering around. I say particularly in the East, because in the East in the ancient days, before repressive ideologies started making people split and schizophrenic, love was not to be made until the urge came to its peak.
“It was not that you have to make love every day. Both the partners should wait for each other to come to a state where it is no longer possible to hold on. Naturally, those people were far more wise. They might have been making love once a week or once a month, but their love yielded tremendous experiences which everyday love cannot yield.
“You don’t have enough energy for that great experience to happen. It needs to be at the peak of your control, throbbing with energy, and then it is really a dance, a merger and meeting of two energies. And at the highest peak, then man may also feel death surrounding him. The feeling of death is there because it is all one energy, but as the sexual energy is released, the feeling of death disperses.
“Only lately has medical science accepted one fact, that the people who go on making love do not die of heart attacks. But they should ask: do they die of anything else? They live longer, and remain younger. But you can make love at the lowest point…that’s where people are making it. It is not satisfying, not gratifying; it does not give you any contentment, it simply leaves you in despair.
“Love should be made at the highest peak, and that needs a certain discipline. People have used discipline to not make love. I teach discipline to make love rightly, so that your love is not just a biological thing, never reaching your psychological world. And it has the potential to reach even your spiritual world. At the highest peak it will reach your spiritual world.
“Why – at that point – is one certainly reminded of death? Because you forget your body, you forget your mind; you remain just a pure consciousness, merged with your partner. It is very, very similar to death.
“As you die – if you are dying consciously – you will forget the body, you will forget the mind, just consciousnessÉand then suddenly the consciousness merges into the whole. That merging with the whole is a thousandfold more beautiful than is possible through any orgasm. But both these things are certainly deeply related. They are one. And anyone who wants to understand death, has to understand sex – or vice versa.
“But strange – people like Sigmund Freud or Carl Gustav Jung, who are trying to understand sex, are so much afraid of death. Their understanding of sex cannot go very far. And as far as death is concerned, nobody thinks about it, nobody even wants to talk about it.
“If you start on the subject of death people think you don’t know your manners. It is something that has not to be talked about; death has to be simply ignored. But by ignoring death you cannot understand life. They are all connected: sex is the beginning, death is the end. Life is just in between, the energy that flows from sex to death. All three have to be understood together.
“The effort has not been made. The experiments have not been made, particularly in the contemporary world. In the East, way back, before Buddha and Mahavira, they must have looked into the phenomenon very closely. Otherwise, what is the need to make Shiva’s wife dance on his chest with a garland of skulls. And in her hands? – one hand is holding a recently cut head, blood is flowing, and in the other hand is a naked sword. She looks absolutely mad.
“This is just a pictorial illustration of the deepest state of orgasm; this is how the woman can be depicted. And the man is just lying under her as she dances. She can cut off his head or he may die just from the dance on his chest. But one thing is certain, that death is there. Whether death happens or not, that is another thing.
“Perhaps this is one of the reasons – unconsciously – because in the West they have always been afraid. They chose only one posture to make love in – that is, with the man on top, so that he is in control and the woman cannot go absolutely berserk, the way Shivani goes on Shiva’s chest.
“And the woman has been taught for centuries that she must not even move, because that is not lady-like – only prostitutes move. She has to lie down almost as if she is dead, unmoving. She will never attain any orgasm, clitoral or vaginal. But she is a lady, and there is the question of reputation, respectability. She is not allowed to enjoy, she has to be serious in the whole affair. It is only the man who can make movements, not the woman.
“My insight is that this is because of the fear. In the East the common position for love is with the woman on top, not the man. The man being on top is absolutely ugly. He is heavier, he is taller, and he is just crushing a delicate woman unnecessarily. And it will be scientifically right that he is not on the top so that he cannot move much, and the woman has more freedom to move – to scream with joy, to beat the man, to bite the man, to scratch his face, or whatsoever comes to her.
“She has to be a Shivani. She does not have a sword, but she has nails, long nails; she can do much with those nails. And if she is on top she is faster, the man is slower, and that can bring them together to the orgasmic peak. With the man on top and woman under him it is impossible to come together to the orgasmic peak. But the man has not cared; he has simply used the woman.
“The ancient Eastern wisdom had a totally different attitude. In the time of the Upanishads, the woman was respected the same as the man. There was no question of inequality. She read all the religious scriptures, she was allowed even to go to great discussions.
“It was the worst day when man decided that woman was second grade and had simply to follow man and his dictates. She is not even allowed to read scriptures, she is not allowed to discuss the great problems of life. And there is no question that she should be asked what the situation is from her side. Her side is half, and this rejection has kept man split, schizophrenic. It is time that we should bring man and woman wholeheartedly together. Their experiences, their understandings, their meditations, should make one whole – and that will be the beginning of a real humanity.” (Light on The Path)
I have heard Osho say that the meditator experiences death, not of the body but of the mind, and is therefore born again. Dwija (twice born) is the expression used in Sanskrit. It is one thing to sit with Osho as he is talking and be seduced into meditation by the soft rhythmic sound of his voice, falling into the gaps of silence, feeling suspended in timelessness; it is something else to be aware during the day in all the things I do. For instance, when walking I remember to just walk without working something out in my mind; eating, just chew, without the background of a dialogue. I find this fun, almost like a game, and it spreads more and more into my day. But to sit silently in my room is something else. To sit down and do nothing feels like death. I feel as though I am letting go of everything I know, and what else can death be, but letting go of everything? I have heard Osho say that that is why people usually die unconsciously; it is nature’s greatest surgery, to separate the “soul” from the body and mind with which it has been identified for your whole life, and so the kindest way is to die unconsciously. That is why people cannot remember their last death, or life.
When I sit silently the first thoughts that come into my mind are: “DO something. There is so much to DO.” Somehow even being aware of my movements during the day is a type of DOING – at least there is something to watch. My mind is in fear when I sit silently; it says, “So what if you sit one hour, what do you get afterwards? You will end up more vulnerable and unable to cope with your life.” THAT’S the big one. My life is perfectly good, I am enjoying myself, what if I should lose hold on what I have? Ah! I remember the story of the diamond mine, and Osho’s promise that there is much much more.
I have read both in scientific papers and newspapers, stories told by people who almost died. People who, on the operating table for instance, experienced death because their heart stopped, or people who had been in coma after a severe accident, and then “come back” to life. When I read the descriptions of the experiences, I was surprised to see that they are exactly the same experiences I have known in meditation.
The “Herald Tribune” last year ran an article where people described their near-death experiences, when in tremendous shock they must have left their bodies. Every one of them talked of a “light” at the end of a tunnel, going through it and feeling tremendous love and blissfulness. Some of these people, being Christians, would interpret the “light” as Jesus, and on recovering from their illness would become religious. I have experienced this in meditation, although I always passed out before the “light” totally engulfed me.
A sannyasin asked Osho about this experience in a discourse in The Hidden Splendor. He had experienced it as “a big black spot. Inside this black spot there is a white one. This white spot comes nearer and nearer, whirling in a circle. But just before the black spot disappears totally, I open my eyes.”
Osho: “What happened to you was tremendously significant, rare and unique. It is one of the contributions of the East to the world: the understanding that between these two eyes there is a third eye inside which normally remains dormant. One has to work hard, bring his whole sexual energy upwards, against gravitation, and when the energy reaches the third eye, it opens.”
Osho explained to him to try and resist opening his eyes when it happens.
“…And once you have known the black spot disappearing…that black spot is you and the white spot is your consciousness. The black spot is your ego, and the white spot is your being. Allow the being to spread and let the ego disappear.
“Just a little courage – it may look like death because you have been indentified with the black spot and it is disappearing. And you have never been identified with the white spot, so something unfamiliar, unknown, is taking possession of you. “
My understanding is that nothing harmful can happen through meditation, because the watcher, or witness remains. When I told Osho that I sometimes had the desire to faint while meditating, he said: “You have to go beyond the state where you start feeling faint, or passing out. Don’t be afraid – pass out, faint, go into it, let it overwhelm you. For a moment all will be lost, but only for a moment. And then suddenly – the dawn; the night is over.” (The Rebel)
Osho has spoken a lot on death, the greatest mystery and the greatest taboo. In his book The Rajneesh Upanishad, he said:
“We have given up our lives at the very moment when we were born, because the birth is nothing but a beginning of death. Each moment you will be dying more and more.
“It is not that on a certain day, at seventy years old, death comes; it is not an event, it is a process that begins with the birth. It takes seventy years; it is mighty lazy, but it is a process, not an event. And I am emphasizing this fact so that I can make it clear to you that life and death are not two things. They become two if death is an event which ends life. Then they become two; then they become antagonistic, enemies.
“When I say that death is a process beginning with birth, I am saying that life is also a process beginning with the same birth – and these are not two processes. It is one process: it begins with birth, it ends with death.
“But life and death are like two wings of a bird, or two hands, or two legs.
“Life is a dialectic – and if you understand this, a tremendous acceptance of death naturally comes to you. It is not against you, it is part of you; without it you cannot be alive.
“And I say to you: death is fiction. There is no death because nothing dies, only things change. And if you are aware, you can make them change for the better.
“That’s how evolution happens.”
Nirvano’s death was sudden, unexpected and shocking. I had the feeling that a part of myself had gone, and I had a feeling of urgency that I had to live more fully from now on. Her death gave me the gift of urgency. If Osho could have got anyone enlightened, if he could have done it for someone, then he would have done it for her. But we have to walk The Path alone, he can only point the way. So many things that Osho said I received as poetry, I did not realize he was giving us the Truth.
Nirvano and I had sat at Osho’s feet about ten years ago. We sat in meditation together in his room. He sat in his chair and we both sat on the floor for about an hour. Within the first couple of minutes, I experienced an explosion, and I was lost for a while in colors and light. After a few moments, Osho said, “Okay, come back now.” He had a smile on his face and he said that it had been far more than he had expected, and that now we (Nirvano and I) were “twins – energy twins.”
Nirvano and I had been living together very intensely for twelve years; at times loving each other and at times “arch enemies” as Osho put it once, “who couldn’t be in the same room together.” It was a strong relationship. I felt closest to her when we were in Bombay at the end of the World Tour. Osho’s laundry room was also her bedroom, and the weather temperature was above 120 degrees. We were right on top of each other, and although the situation was extremely difficult because of space, there was a love between us that I cherished. In her British way she was always a little cool with people, but being in the same room all day together, it dropped. I liked to do her hair for her, to pile it up on top of her head with pins, although it always fell down, it was too silky and heavy.
The last time I saw her alive she was leaving Buddha Hall and I was sitting by the doorway. We looked at each other and smiled. That was my small farewell.
When she died I didn’t feel there was anything left over that I had wanted to say to her. In fact, every one of her friends felt a completion with her. She lived totally, and I had learnt already that I have to be aware with everyone I know that nothing is to be left unsaid. I don’t want to behave with a friend unconsciously, because it is a fact that they may never be seen again and what is left unsaid leaves a hole, a wound that cannot heal.
In life Nirvano was the greatest mystery to me, the way she lived, the way she was. One moment she was a child, innocent, and in the next moment a mother Kali brandishing a sword. And her death was as mysterious as her life. I don’t know why she died. I know she was desperately unhappy and had talked of wanting to die since I knew her. But I always thought a “click” would happen, a change would happen and one day she would suddenly be enlightened. I think she was close to enlightenment, very close. She was a wise woman, and she was in tune with Osho like nobody else. Many times when he was sick she would intuitively know what the problem was and he said many times how lovingly she cared for him. She had a clarity and sharpness, and great perception and understanding of people, especially their negative points. Yet, she would swing into a depression so overwhelming that she would be completely helpless and would make it impossible for anyone to help her also. She closed the doors and suffered alone.
As a child her parents took her to Switzerland to hospitals, because she refused to eat. In the last few years that I knew her she had a hormonal or chemical imbalance and was treated with medicine for this. Nothing worked though. Earlier in l989 she visited a psychiatric hospital in England for treatment, but did not stay for more than two days. She said that the doctors were more insane than her and it made her realize that she could overcome her depression on her own.
The last few months I didn’t see her because whenever I went to visit her she would ask me to come back later – and then she would not answer the door. So, I got the message that she didn’t want to see me.
It was better for me to stay away from her, because I used to pick up her unhappiness very easily. On the last few occasions that I did visit her she would tell me about the anxiety and incredible pain she felt in her “hara” or lower stomach. For years she would wake each morning with a feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach. After talking to her about it, the very next morning I would wake up with the same pain in my stomach. I would open my eyes and the first thing to flood me would be, “Oh no! Not another day!” I was accepting her wounds as my own.
The last time I went to visit her we were just gossiping for fun. I was ragging on my boyfriend, because he was with another woman and I was saying a few mean things about him; making him look a bit silly in front of the girls. Afterwards I thought to myself that it wasn’t really fair that I talk about someone like that. After all I don’t really know his situation, and basically I felt bad about it. I saw Nirvano in the morning and I said to her, please forget what was said, I don’t have any right to bad mouth someone when I don’t really know what’s happening for him.
She said to me, “Oh, for goodness sake. Just a little gossip with the girls. There’s no harm in that. Otherwise you’ll be walking around half-enlightened. And you can’t be half-enlightened around here. You’re either totally enlightened, or totally unenlightened.”
I think its bloody brilliant to say something like that. For me, she was a wise woman.
When I close my eyes to remember her I can only see her laughing. When she was happy, she was the most ecstatic, alive person I have ever met.
In Buddha Hall, the last time I sat next to her for the meditation with Osho, in the silent period, I could hear a sound coming from inside her. I recognized that sound as one that I make when I am feeling very content, very centered and warm inside. I heard that coming from her. So I had some understanding of the space she was in. That’s why, when just one week later she died, I was very shocked, because for me, knowing that space, I don’t think I could reach such depths of depression. Although she knew that same meditative feeling, her depression must have been so strong, so overpowering, that nothing could help her.
I know that Osho tried everything possible. He gave her everything she wanted. He wanted to keep her here, but she was also free to go anywhere in the world she liked. Many times she went to England; she would stay for one or two days and then return. She went to Australia earlier that year to start a new life, but after a couple of days she returned. Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, many places she visited but after a few days she returned. I think that if she could have stayed until Osho left his body, that would have been the “click,” the turning point for her. He said that her death was untimely.
Nirvano’s body was taken that night to the burning ghats by the river and, at Osho’s request, only a few of her friends attended. I had only seen the open-spaced burning ghats overflowing with sannyasins before, and now there were only about forty of us standing solemnly awaiting the ambulance to arrive with her body.
I namasted her as she was carried to the funeral pyre. My friend, Amiyo, on seeing the body said “That body is not Nirvano – she has gone.”
The body was laid on the funeral pyre in the centre of the ghats and covered with wooden logs. I moved around the fire as it blazed up and found myself standing at Nirvano’s right side. “Strange,” I thought, “that Nirvano’s is the first body I see burning. She is my closest encounter with death.”
The logs had been stacked, or had slipped, in such a way that a “window” was created through which I could see her face, like a pure white mask floating and dissolving in the pale smoke. Her lips were swollen and dark red and in the dance of the flames appeared to be whispering.
“Nirvano” I looked up at the waxing moon.
Slowly I backed away from the fire, and fainted. When I opened my eyes I didn’t know where I was and thought that maybe I had died.
Later that night I thought, “She would have been proud of me – fainting at her funeral.” It’s the kind of dramatic thing that she would do, and she had always said of me that I was wishy-washy.
I could never really know, but I have an idea, just how much he loved her. There was a magic between them that was never disturbed from his side by her moods and temperament. Whenever she returned from a trip that was supposedly for good, she was welcomed back without question. On her return from Australia, after three days, where she had gone “to start a new life,” she said to me, “Let’s see what my crazy mind can think up next.”
Although I have had no experience of past lives I always had the impression that their relationship was ancient. He said in a discourse in 1978 that she had been his girlfriend in her past life (just forty years ago) and she had died at the age of seventeen of typhoid and had promised to come back and take care of him.
I have heard Osho say never judge a person by his deeds, his actions, by what he does. With Nirvano this was so clear to see how on the one hand she was a beautiful “soul,” or energy, and on the other hand a very difficult person. Osho said that she never meditated and she had always disturbed his work. He said that she had always made it difficult for whoever was doing secretarial work for him. Maybe she lacked an understanding of what Osho’s work is? He has thousands of disciples and is working on everyone. This is a fact that can be proved by observing the people who have been open to the changes that come through Osho’s meditation techniques.
It is not easy to understand what unconditional love is. A love that asks nothing in return is so rare in a world where we know only love that includes possession and domination. Osho’s love and compassion were unchanging and always there for Nirvano. He is love and his love is there waiting to be received. Sometimes she wasn’t able to receive, but that is true of all of us.
There is so much that will always remain unfathomable, a mystery. It seems that the very nature of things is to not be understood. The more I try to understand what has happened in the last few years, the more I am brought back to the present moment – breath touching my nose, moving through my body; I see the trunk of a tree from my window – solid, there; sunlight, and wind blows through the leaves, moving them like long fingers; the gurgle of water running, birds singing, and I stare into silence.
What is there, really? Maybe it will always be impossible to understand.
“Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” Osho