OSHO on Death....

Remember, until you die you cannot be reborn. As you are, you have to pass through death. And you are clinging too much to life. That won't help – death will come. But death comes in two ways. One way, the usual way it comes: you are clinging to life and it comes as the enemy; you fight with it, you resist it, you do everything that you can do to avoid it. But how can you avoid it? The day you were born death became certain; every birth carries the seed of death. In fact, in life nothing else is certain but death. Everything is at the most probable, but death is certain. It will happen. You can avoid it, you can postpone it a little, but that doesn't change the situation. It will happen. One way to face death is as the enemy, which is the way ninety-nine per cent of people face it – and miss it. Because of their enmity they cannot use it, they cannot be profited by it, they cannot be served by death.

There is another way: to accept death as a friend, to accept it as an innermost part of your being, to enjoy it, to welcome it, to be ready for it and when it comes to embrace it. Suddenly the quality of death changes. It is no more death, it becomes a door. It no longer destroys you; on the contrary, you are served by it. It leads you to the deathless.

Die – you will have to die. But die gracefully. I am not saying die like a stoic, I am not saying die like a very controlled man. No, I'm saying die gracefully, beautifully, as if a friend is coming, knocks at your door, and you are happy. And you embrace the friend and invite him in, and you have been waiting for him so long....

If you can love death you become deathless; if you can understand non-being then your being becomes the very ground of being-hood, the very ground of God. If you can love non-being then nothing can destroy you, you have transcended time and space. Then you have become one with the total, and this is what holiness is – to become whole is to be holy.

OSHO