The Hindustan Times: New Delhi
New Delhi: 17 January, 2002
Swami Chaitanya Keerti
“Osho left his body on 19 Janaury, 1990. His disciples celebrate this day as Osho Mahotsav all over the world. Often people ask Osho disciples: “Why do you celebrate death?”
Celebrate everything is the foundation of Osho’s vision. He says: “My sannyasins celebrate everything. Celebration is the foundation of my sannyas – not renunciation but rejoicing; rejoicing in all the beauties because this whole life is a gift of God.”
“Osho does not exclude death as it is the crescendo of life. He says: “My sannyasins celebrate death because they celebrate life. And death is not against life; it does not end life, it only brings life to a beautiful peak.Life continues even after death. It was there before birth, it is going to continue after death. Life is not confined to the small space that exists between birth and death; on the contrary, births and deaths are small episodes in the eternity of life.”
“We celebrate everything. Celebration is our way to receive all the gifts from God. Life is his gift, death is his gift; the body is his gift, the soul is his gift. We celebrate everything. We love the body, we love the soul. We are materialist spiritualists. Nothing like this has ever happened in the world. This is a new experiment, a new beginning, and it has a great future.”
Celebrating death does not mean that one loses interest in life. No, this is not so. Actually one starts living intensely because there is death. As we come to know that we don’t have too many years to live, we bring a qualitative change to our life and start living intensely.
Osho inspires us: Live as intensely as possible, and the very taste of life will give you the clue why death is not to be feared. Once you have known your life, its fire, you will know that there is no death. This life that one comes to know by intense living is eternal.
The feeling of its eternity arises simultaneously as you live. The deeper, the more intensely you live, the quicker you feel there is no death.
In my religion death is celebrated because there is no death.It is only an entry into another life.
We celebrate birth – people think we are celebrating death – because there is no death as such because nothing dies, only forms change. Life transmigrates from one form into another; and it should be a moment of rejoicing for all concerned when a person dies, because he is dying only apparently. From our side it feels he is dying; from the other side he is being born.
