Jain Spirit 2002 03 No 10

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 52

Death Is A Lie
JACKIE MORRIS
one dies, that no one has ever
Yes, there is a way now. died."
We can go through an Some people do, of course, try
experiment of entering into to falsify death. Just because of
death of our own free will. their fear of death people believe in
The meditation of samadhi is the immortality of the soul - just
nothing else but that. The out of fear. They don't know, they
experience of entering death simply believe. Every morning,
voluntarily is meditation, sitting in a temple or a mosque,
samadhi. The phenomenon some people repeat, "No one dies:
that will automatically occur the soul is immortal." They are
one day with the dropping of wrong in believing that just by
the body - we can willingly repeating this the soul will become
make that happen by creating a immortal. They are under the
distance inside, between the impression that death can be
self and the body from the falsified by repeating, "The soul is
inside, we can experience the immortal." Death never becomes
event of death, we can false by such reiterations - only by
experience the occurrence of knowing death can it be falsified.
death. We can experience Death is our own shadow. If
death today, this evening - we keep running away from it we
because the occurrence of will not be able to stand before it
death simply means that our and recognise what it is. If that
soul and our body will man had stopped and seen what
experience in that journey the was behind him, perhaps he would
same distinction between the have laughed and said, "What kind
two of them as when the of a person am I, running away
vehicle is left behind and the from a shadow?" No one can ever
traveller moves on ahead. escape from a shadow; no one can
In meditation, too, one has the shadow "The experience of entering death voluntarily is meditation, to enter slowly within. This does not mean, however, that sama ever that samadhi." Metal icon of the liberated soul ©Jackie Morris
Gradually, one after another, the shadow is stronger than we are
things begin to drop away. A and that we can never be victorious; it
distance is created with each and every simply means that there is no shadow, that
thing, and the moment arrives when it there is no question of being victorious. "It is essential to see feels as if everything is lying far away at You cannot win against that which does not
a distance. It will feel as if someone exist. That's why people go on being death, to understand it,
else's corpse is lying on the shore - and defeated by death - because death is merely
yet you exist. The body is lying there a shadow of life.
and still you exist - separate, totally Birth and death are simply stations
distant and different. where vehicles are changed - where the old
Once we experience seeing death vehicles are left behind, where tired horses are abandoned and face-to-face while alive, we will never have anything to do fresh ones are acquired. But both these acts take place in our with death again. Death will keep on coming, but then it state of unconsciousness. And one whose birth and death will be just like a stopover - it will be like changing clothes, happens in this unconscious state cannot live a conscious life it will be like when we take new horses and ride in new - he functions in an almost half-conscious state, in an almost bodies and set out on a new journey, on new paths, into new half-awakened state of life.
worlds. But death will never be able to destroy us. This can What I wish to say is that it is essential to see death, to only be known by encountering death. We will have to understand it, to recognise it. This is possible only when we know it; we will have to pass through it. 2 die; one can only see it while dying. Then what is the way now? And if one sees death only while dying, then there is no Osho was a famous teacher of spiritual salvation. The way to understand it - because at the time of death one will be above is an extract from the book 'And Now, and Here: on unconscious.
Death. Dying and Past Lives'. - Osho International Foundation 1985 & 1995, Edited by Dr. Vasant Joshi.
to recognize it.”
March - May 2002 . Jain Spirit
51