"The involvement with the body was broken the day you became enlightened.

"In the ancient scriptures of the Buddhists, enlightenment is called the 'great death' – not that you are going to die, but the death is great because you will be able to see it happening, you will be a witness. Now you are no longer attached to the body, no clinging, and you have become aware of your immortality.

"You can die consciously only when you know that you are immortal, that you belong to eternity, not to time; that deep within you is the beginning of existence and the end of existence – if there is any beginning or if there is any end. In fact there is no beginning and no end; you have always been here, and you will always be here.

"A conscious death is one of the miracles of life, because after that you will not be born again in any form – as a man, as a bird, as a tree. You will remain in the eternal consciousness of the universe, spread all over the ocean. Hence, it has been called the 'great death.'

"But there are no exceptions. Existence follows absolutely definite laws, and this is a law of the highest order, because it concerns your consciousness, your life, your death.

Osho,
I sit here feeling the stillness of the universe, listening to a bird's sweet song – and I wonder. Then I listen again to your vision for mankind now, and I wonder that perhaps I am your hands and your feet – that perhaps I should be out there. I wonder whether this frail bud is yet ready enough, that maybe it needs a little more sweet dew and sun fire….

"Jivan Mary, you are saying, 'I sit here feeling the stillness of the universe, listening to a bird's sweet song – and I wonder. Then I listen again to your vision for mankind now, and I wonder that perhaps I am your hands and your feet.' You are.

"Every sannyasin is my hands, my eyes, my soul.

"I am not giving you a teaching, I am giving you myself.

"But that does not mean that you have to go somewhere else."