Osho gives his unique insight on the process of reincarnation.
I heard You say that we sometimes carry other people's wounds. What does this mean? Is another person's wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? If we can so easily accept someone else's wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood?
It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to answer. Everybody is carrying other people's wounds. In the first place, you are living in a sick society where people are angry, full of hate, enjoy to hurt—that is the superficial level which can be understood easily. But there are subtle levels, there are so-called religious saints who are creating feelings of guilt in you, who are condemning you to be a sinner. They are giving you an idea which will create misery around you….
According to me, the whole foundation of life has to be changed. People should be sympathetic only when there is pleasure and joy and rejoicing, because by your sympathy you are nourishing. Nourish people's joy, don't nourish their sadness and their misery. Be compassionate when they are miserable. Make it clear that this misery is chosen by yourself.
On a deeper level…perhaps the questioner has not asked me to go that deep, but the answer will remain incomplete if I don't go deep enough.
The very idea of reincarnation, which has arisen in all the Eastern religions, is that the self goes on moving from one body to another body, from one life to another life. This idea does not exist in the religions that have arisen out of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. But now even psychiatrists are finding that it seems to be true. People can remember their past lives; the idea of reincarnation is gaining ground.
But I want to say one thing to you: the whole idea of reincarnation is a misconception. It is true that when a person dies his being becomes part of the whole. Whether he was a sinner or a saint does not matter, but he had also something called the mind, the memory. In the past the information was not available to explain memory as a bundle of thoughts and thought waves, but now it is easier.
And that's where, on many points, I find Gautam Buddha far ahead of his time. He is the only man who would have agreed with my explanation. He has given hints, but he could not provide any evidence for it; there was nothing available to say. He has said that when a person dies, his memory travels into a new womb—not the self. And we now can understand it, that when you are dying, you will leave memories all around in the air. And if you have been miserable, all your miseries will find some location; they will enter into some other memory system. Either they will enter totally into a single womb—that's how somebody remembers one's past. It is not your past; it was somebody else's mind that you have inherited.
Most people don't remember because they have not got the whole lump, the whole heritage of a single individual's memory system. They may have got fragments from here and there, and those fragments create your misery system. All those people who have died on the earth have died in misery. Very few people have died in joy. Very few people have died with the realization of no-mind. They don't leave a trace behind. They don't burden anybody else with their memory. They simply disperse into the universe. They don't have any mind and they don't have any memory system. They have already dissolved it in their meditations. That's why the enlightened person is never born.
But the unenlightened people go on throwing out, with every death, all kinds of misery patterns. Just as riches attract more riches, misery attracts more misery. If you are miserable, then from miles, misery will travel to you—you are the right vehicle. And this is a very invisible phenomenon, like radio waves. They are traveling around you; you don't hear them. Once you have the right instrument to receive them, immediately they become available. Even before the radio was there, they were traveling by your side.
There is no incarnation, but misery incarnates. Wounds of millions of people are moving around you, just in search of somebody who is willing to be miserable. Of course, the blissful does not leave any trace. The man of awakening dies the way a bird moves into the sky, without making a track or a path. The sky remains empty. Blissfulness moves without making any trace. That's why you don't get any inheritance from the buddhas; they simply disappear. And all kinds of idiots and retarded people go on reincarnating in their memories and it becomes every day thicker and thicker.
Today, perhaps, it has come to the point to be understood and to be dissolved; otherwise it is too thick to allow you to live, to allow you to laugh.
Your own consciousness has no wounds.
Your own consciousness knows nothing of misery.
Your own consciousness is innocent, utterly blissful. To bring you in touch with your own consciousness, every effort is being made to detract you from the mind. The mind contains all your misery, all your wounds. And it goes on creating wounds in such a way that, unless you are aware, you will not even find how it creates them….
All our miseries are so superficial—and most fundamentally, they are all borrowed.
And everybody is giving his misery to everybody else he comes in contact with. People are talking continuously about their miseries, about their troubles, about their conflicts. Have you ever heard anybody talking about his joyous moments? About his dances and songs? About his silences and blissfulness? No, nobody talks about these things. People go on sharing all their wounds, and whenever you are talking about your misery to somebody, without your knowing, you are transferring a miserable pattern. The person may be thinking that he is only listening to you, but he is also catching the vibe of misery, the wounds.
When I said that you carry other people's wounds, my statement meant that your own consciousness has no wounds. If everybody becomes alert, meditative, there will be no wounds in the world. They will simply disappear. They will not find any house, any shelter. This is possible. If it is possible for me, it is possible for everybody.
And in your question you also ask why "we can so easily accept someone else's wound," and why it is "so difficult to accept our own buddhahood."
You can accept somebody's wounds because you also have wounds. You understand the language of wounds, miseries, sufferings.
From what I heard You say last night about reincarnation, I understand that even individuality is superficial. Reincarnation was a consolation for me, that "my essence" or "soul" would continue. But now I understand that nothing of me will continue.
In witnessing, do we all "plug in" to the same witnessing energy? Don't I even have my own witness?
The ultimate truth hurts very much.
Finally, everything is gone, including me and you. What remains is a pure consciousness.
It is not that you are plugged into it, you are no more.
The dispersion is so intimate and so ultimate that first your personality has to disappear, then your individuality has to disappear, then what remains is pure existence. It makes one feel a little worried and concerned, because you don't know the experience of not being.
Just think for a moment…. Before this life you were not. Was there any trouble? Any anxiety?
After this life you will not be again. What is the fear? There will be silence and peace, in the same space where anxiety, tensions and anguishes flourished. They all will have melted just the way a dewdrop disappears into the ocean.
Hence, Zen does not teach you self-realization. Self-realization is a much lower goal. Zen teaches you the ultimate: no-self realization, or realizing that disappearing into the whole is the final peace.
Your very being is an anxiety. At whatever level you are, some anxiety will remain. You are anxiety, and if you want anxiety to disappear, you have to be ready to disappear yourself.
Evolution is not something discovered by Charles Darwin. Evolution is an Eastern concept discovered by the mystics—and in the East they have really gone deeper. Charles Darwin is only superficial; he thought that man has come from the monkeys, and he was laughed at all over the world. The idea looks strange…but the mystic's idea does not look strange. He does not say that man has come from the monkeys; he says that the essence of consciousness has passed through many forms, and it has passed through the forms of monkeys too.
According to me, not every man has come to be a man from being a monkey; different people have traveled different lines of evolution. All are coming from different animals, and that is one of the reasons why they are so unequal. A man who is coming from monkeys is bound to carry some traits, some characteristics, of the monkeys. Another man coming from horses will have different characteristics.
There are millions of animals in the world, and every person has moved through different forms. It is not a highway, with the whole of humanity coming from the same source. If that were the case, all people would have been equal. Somebody is a genius, somebody is a born idiot—certainly they are coming from different sources.
Gautam Buddha himself remembers his past lives: in one life, he says, he was an elephant, and after the life of the elephant he was born as a man….
People are coming from different sources for different reasons. The theory of reincarnation is basically a more scientific approach to evolution than that of Charles Darwin. It is well known that different animals have different characters….
A person who is coming from the body of an elephant into the body of a man will have a tremendous memory. In the same way, all the animals have their own special talents. I am saying this for the first time—that every human being has come from a different animal. Charles Darwin's idea that all have come from the monkeys is wrong. If it was so, then all will show the same characteristics—which is not so.
A dog can be born as a human being, or may go through a few other life-forms—may become a lion, may become a deer and then come as a human being….
Charles Darwin's idea is right, but not in the details; in the details he has not been able to work it out. I agree with him on this essential point that man has evolved out of animals, but I don't agree with him that all human beings have evolved from the same animal—monkey, ape, or chimpanzee. Human beings have come from all different directions. It is a gathering of all kinds of animals, and if you watch people you can find from where each person is coming. Just a little watchfulness is needed, alertness, and you can feel that this man seems to be related to a certain species.
I heard You say that we sometimes carry other people's wounds. What does this mean? Is another person's wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? If we can so easily accept someone else's wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood?
It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to answer. Everybody is carrying other people's wounds. In the first place, you are living in a sick society where people are angry, full of hate, enjoy to hurt—that is the superficial level which can be understood easily. But there are subtle levels, there are so-called religious saints who are creating feelings of guilt in you, who are condemning you to be a sinner. They are giving you an idea which will create misery around you….
According to me, the whole foundation of life has to be changed. People should be sympathetic only when there is pleasure and joy and rejoicing, because by your sympathy you are nourishing. Nourish people's joy, don't nourish their sadness and their misery. Be compassionate when they are miserable. Make it clear that this misery is chosen by yourself.
On a deeper level…perhaps the questioner has not asked me to go that deep, but the answer will remain incomplete if I don't go deep enough.
The very idea of reincarnation, which has arisen in all the Eastern religions, is that the self goes on moving from one body to another body, from one life to another life. This idea does not exist in the religions that have arisen out of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism. But now even psychiatrists are finding that it seems to be true. People can remember their past lives; the idea of reincarnation is gaining ground.
But I want to say one thing to you: the whole idea of reincarnation is a misconception. It is true that when a person dies his being becomes part of the whole. Whether he was a sinner or a saint does not matter, but he had also something called the mind, the memory. In the past the information was not available to explain memory as a bundle of thoughts and thought waves, but now it is easier.
And that's where, on many points, I find Gautam Buddha far ahead of his time. He is the only man who would have agreed with my explanation. He has given hints, but he could not provide any evidence for it; there was nothing available to say. He has said that when a person dies, his memory travels into a new womb—not the self. And we now can understand it, that when you are dying, you will leave memories all around in the air. And if you have been miserable, all your miseries will find some location; they will enter into some other memory system. Either they will enter totally into a single womb—that's how somebody remembers one's past. It is not your past; it was somebody else's mind that you have inherited.
Most people don't remember because they have not got the whole lump, the whole heritage of a single individual's memory system. They may have got fragments from here and there, and those fragments create your misery system. All those people who have died on the earth have died in misery. Very few people have died in joy. Very few people have died with the realization of no-mind. They don't leave a trace behind. They don't burden anybody else with their memory. They simply disperse into the universe. They don't have any mind and they don't have any memory system. They have already dissolved it in their meditations. That's why the enlightened person is never born.
But the unenlightened people go on throwing out, with every death, all kinds of misery patterns. Just as riches attract more riches, misery attracts more misery. If you are miserable, then from miles, misery will travel to you—you are the right vehicle. And this is a very invisible phenomenon, like radio waves. They are traveling around you; you don't hear them. Once you have the right instrument to receive them, immediately they become available. Even before the radio was there, they were traveling by your side.
There is no incarnation, but misery incarnates. Wounds of millions of people are moving around you, just in search of somebody who is willing to be miserable. Of course, the blissful does not leave any trace. The man of awakening dies the way a bird moves into the sky, without making a track or a path. The sky remains empty. Blissfulness moves without making any trace. That's why you don't get any inheritance from the buddhas; they simply disappear. And all kinds of idiots and retarded people go on reincarnating in their memories and it becomes every day thicker and thicker.
Today, perhaps, it has come to the point to be understood and to be dissolved; otherwise it is too thick to allow you to live, to allow you to laugh.
Your own consciousness has no wounds.
Your own consciousness knows nothing of misery.
Your own consciousness is innocent, utterly blissful. To bring you in touch with your own consciousness, every effort is being made to detract you from the mind. The mind contains all your misery, all your wounds. And it goes on creating wounds in such a way that, unless you are aware, you will not even find how it creates them….
All our miseries are so superficial—and most fundamentally, they are all borrowed.
And everybody is giving his misery to everybody else he comes in contact with. People are talking continuously about their miseries, about their troubles, about their conflicts. Have you ever heard anybody talking about his joyous moments? About his dances and songs? About his silences and blissfulness? No, nobody talks about these things. People go on sharing all their wounds, and whenever you are talking about your misery to somebody, without your knowing, you are transferring a miserable pattern. The person may be thinking that he is only listening to you, but he is also catching the vibe of misery, the wounds.
When I said that you carry other people's wounds, my statement meant that your own consciousness has no wounds. If everybody becomes alert, meditative, there will be no wounds in the world. They will simply disappear. They will not find any house, any shelter. This is possible. If it is possible for me, it is possible for everybody.
And in your question you also ask why "we can so easily accept someone else's wound," and why it is "so difficult to accept our own buddhahood."
You can accept somebody's wounds because you also have wounds. You understand the language of wounds, miseries, sufferings.
From what I heard You say last night about reincarnation, I understand that even individuality is superficial. Reincarnation was a consolation for me, that "my essence" or "soul" would continue. But now I understand that nothing of me will continue.
In witnessing, do we all "plug in" to the same witnessing energy? Don't I even have my own witness?
The ultimate truth hurts very much.
Finally, everything is gone, including me and you. What remains is a pure consciousness.
It is not that you are plugged into it, you are no more.
The dispersion is so intimate and so ultimate that first your personality has to disappear, then your individuality has to disappear, then what remains is pure existence. It makes one feel a little worried and concerned, because you don't know the experience of not being.
Just think for a moment…. Before this life you were not. Was there any trouble? Any anxiety?
After this life you will not be again. What is the fear? There will be silence and peace, in the same space where anxiety, tensions and anguishes flourished. They all will have melted just the way a dewdrop disappears into the ocean.
Hence, Zen does not teach you self-realization. Self-realization is a much lower goal. Zen teaches you the ultimate: no-self realization, or realizing that disappearing into the whole is the final peace.
Your very being is an anxiety. At whatever level you are, some anxiety will remain. You are anxiety, and if you want anxiety to disappear, you have to be ready to disappear yourself.
Evolution is not something discovered by Charles Darwin. Evolution is an Eastern concept discovered by the mystics—and in the East they have really gone deeper. Charles Darwin is only superficial; he thought that man has come from the monkeys, and he was laughed at all over the world. The idea looks strange…but the mystic's idea does not look strange. He does not say that man has come from the monkeys; he says that the essence of consciousness has passed through many forms, and it has passed through the forms of monkeys too.
According to me, not every man has come to be a man from being a monkey; different people have traveled different lines of evolution. All are coming from different animals, and that is one of the reasons why they are so unequal. A man who is coming from monkeys is bound to carry some traits, some characteristics, of the monkeys. Another man coming from horses will have different characteristics.
There are millions of animals in the world, and every person has moved through different forms. It is not a highway, with the whole of humanity coming from the same source. If that were the case, all people would have been equal. Somebody is a genius, somebody is a born idiot—certainly they are coming from different sources.
Gautam Buddha himself remembers his past lives: in one life, he says, he was an elephant, and after the life of the elephant he was born as a man….
People are coming from different sources for different reasons. The theory of reincarnation is basically a more scientific approach to evolution than that of Charles Darwin. It is well known that different animals have different characters….
A person who is coming from the body of an elephant into the body of a man will have a tremendous memory. In the same way, all the animals have their own special talents. I am saying this for the first time—that every human being has come from a different animal. Charles Darwin's idea that all have come from the monkeys is wrong. If it was so, then all will show the same characteristics—which is not so.
A dog can be born as a human being, or may go through a few other life-forms—may become a lion, may become a deer and then come as a human being….
Charles Darwin's idea is right, but not in the details; in the details he has not been able to work it out. I agree with him on this essential point that man has evolved out of animals, but I don't agree with him that all human beings have evolved from the same animal—monkey, ape, or chimpanzee. Human beings have come from all different directions. It is a gathering of all kinds of animals, and if you watch people you can find from where each person is coming. Just a little watchfulness is needed, alertness, and you can feel that this man seems to be related to a certain species.
