Question -
A friend has asked: what is the
relation between meditation and jati-smaran, past life
remembering?
Osho - Jati-smaran
means: a method of recalling past lives. It is a way to remember our
previous existences. It is a form of meditation. It is a specific application of
meditation. For example, one might ask, "What is a river, and what is a canal?
Our answer would be that the canal is a specific application of the river itself
-- well planned, but controlled and systematic. The river is chaotic,
unrestrained; it too will reach somewhere, but its destination is not certain.
The destination of the canal is assured.
Meditation is like a big river -- it will reach to the ocean; it
is sure to reach. Meditation will surely bring you to God. There are, however,
other intermediary applications of meditation also. Like small tributaries these
can be directed into canals of meditation. Jati-smaran is one such auxiliary
method of meditation. We can channelize the power of meditation towards our past
lives also; meditation simply means the focusing of attention. There can be
applications where one's attention is focused on a given object, and one such
application is jati-smaran -- focusing on the dormant memories of past
lives.
Remember, memories are never erased; a memory either remains
latent or it arises. But the latent memory appears to be erased. If I ask you
what you did on January 1, 1950, you will not be able to answer -- which does
not mean that you might not have done anything on that day. But suddenly the day
of January 1, 1950 feels like a total blank. It could not have been blank; as it
passed, it was filled with activity. But today it feels like a blank. Similarly,
today will become blank tomorrow as well. Ten years from now there will be no
trace left of today.
So it is not that January 1, 1950 did not exist, or that you did
not exist on that day -- what is implied is that since you are unable to recall
that day, how can you believe it ever existed? But it did exist and there is a
way to know about it. Meditation can be focused in that direction as well. As
soon as the light of meditation falls on that day, to your surprise you will see
that it looks more alive than it ever was before.
For example, a person enters a dark room and moves around with a
flashlight. When he turns the light to the left, the right side becomes dark --
but nothing disappears on the right side. When he moves the light to the right,
the right side becomes alive again, but the left side remains hidden in the
dark.
Meditation has a focus, and if one wants to channel it in a
particular direction then it has to be used like a flashlight. If, however, one
wants to turn it towards the divine, then meditation has to be applied like a
lamp. Please understand this carefully. The lamp has no focus of its own; it is
unfocused. A lamp merely burns and its light spreads all around. A lamp has no
interest in lighting up one direction or the other; whatsoever falls within the
radius of light is lit up. But the form of a flashlight is like a focused
lamp.
In a flashlight we keep all the light and shine it in one
direction. So it is possible that under a burning lamp things may become
visible, but hazy, and in order to see them clearly we concentrate the light on
one place -- it becomes a flashlight; then the thing becomes clearly visible.
However, the remaining objects are lost to view. In fact, if a man wants to see
an object clearly he will have to focus his total meditation in one direction
only and turn the rest of the area into darkness.
One who wants to know the truth of life directly will develop
his meditation like a lamp -- that will be his sole purpose. And, in fact, the
lamp's only objective is to see itself; if it can shine this much it is enough
-- that's the end of it. But if some special application of the lamp has to be
made -- such as remembering past lives -- then meditation will have to be
channeled in one direction.
I will share with you two or three clues as to how meditation
can be channelized in that direction. I won't give you all the clues because,
most likely, hardly any of you have any intention of using them, and those who
have can see me personally.
So I will mention two or
three clues which, of course, won't really enable you to experiment with
remembering past lives, but will give you just an idea. I won't discuss the
whole thing because it's not advisable for everyone to experiment with this
idea. Also, this experiment can often put you in danger.
Let me tell you of an incident so that what I am saying becomes
clear to you. For about two or three years, in respect to meditation, a lady
professor stayed in touch with me. She was very insistent on experimenting with
jati-smaran, on learning about her past life. I helped her with the experiment;
however, I also advised her that it would be better if she didn't do the
experiment until her meditation was fully developed, otherwise it could be
dangerous.
As it is, a single life's memories are difficult to bear --
should the memories of the past three or four lives break the barrier and flood
in, a person can go mad. That's why nature has planned it so we go on forgetting
the past. Nature has given us a greater ability to forget more than you can
remember, so that your mind does not have a greater burden than it can carry. A
heavy burden can be borne only after the capacity of your mind has increased,
and trouble begins when the weight of these memories falls on you before this
capacity has been raised. But she remained persistent. She paid no heed to my
advice and went into the experiment.
When the flood of her past life's memory finally burst upon her,
she came running to me around two o'clock in the morning. She was a real mess;
she was in great distress. She said, "Somehow this has got to stop. I don't ever
want to look at that side of things." But it is not so easy to stop the tide of
memory once it has broken loose. It is very difficult to shut the door once it
crashes down -- the door does not simply open, it breaks open. It took about
fifteen days -- only then did the wave of memories stop. What was the
problem?
This lady used to claim that she was very pious, a woman of
impeccable character. When she encountered the memory of her past life, when she
was a prostitute, and the scenes of her prostitution began to emerge, her whole
being was shaken. Her whole morality of this life was disturbed.
In this sort of revelation, it is not as if the visions belong
to someone else -- the same woman who claimed to be chaste now saw herself as a
prostitute. It often happens that someone who was a prostitute in a past life
becomes deeply virtuous in the next; it is a reaction to the suffering of the
past life. It is the memory of the pain and the hurt of the previous life that
turns her into a chaste woman.
It often happens that people who were sinners in past lives
become saints in this life. Hence there is quite a deep relationship between
sinners and saints. Such a reaction often takes place, and the reason is, what
we come to know hurts us and so we swing to the opposite extreme.
The pendulum of our minds keeps moving in the opposite
direction. No sooner does the pendulum reach the left than it moves back to the
right. It barely touches the right when it swings back to the left. When you see
the pendulum of a clock moving towards the left, be assured it is gathering
energy to move back to the right -- it will go as far to the right as it has
gone to the left. Hence, in life it often happens that a virtuous person becomes
a sinner, and a sinner becomes virtuous.
This is very common; this sort of oscillation occurs in
everyone's life. Do not think, therefore, that it is a general rule that one who
has become a holy man in this life must have been a holy man in his past life
also. It is not necessarily so. What is necessarily so is the exact reverse of
it -- he is laden with the pain of what he went through in his past life and has
turned to the opposite.
I have heard.... A holy man and a prostitute once lived opposite
each other. Both died on the same day. The soul of the prostitute was to be
taken to heaven, and that of the holy man, however, to hell. The envoys who had
come to take them away were very puzzled. They kept asking each other, "What
went wrong? Is this a mistake? Why are we to take the holy man to hell? Wasn't
he a holy man?"
The wisest among them said, "He was a holy man all right, but he
envied the prostitute. He always brooded over the parties at her place and the
pleasures that went on there. The notes of music which came drifting to his
house would jolt him to his very core. No admirer of the prostitute, sitting in
front of her, was ever moved as much as he -- listening to the sounds coming
from her residence, the sounds of the small dancing bells she wore on her
ankles. His whole attention always remained focused on her place. Even while
worshipping God, his ears were tuned to the sounds which came from her
house.
"And the prostitute? While she languished in the pit of misery,
she always wondered what unknown bliss the holy man was in. Whenever she saw him
carrying flowers for morning worship, she wondered, 'When will I be worthy to
take flowers of worship to the temple? I am so impure that I can hardly even
gather enough courage to enter the temple.' The holy man was never as lost in
the incense smoke, in the shining lamps, in the sounds of worship as the
prostitute was. The prostitute always longed for the life of the holy man, and
the holy man always craved for the pleasures of the prostitute."
Their
interests and attitudes, so totally opposite each other's, so totally different
from each other's, had completely changed. This often happens -- and there are
laws at work behind these happenings. So when the memory of her past life came
back to this lady professor, she was very hurt. She felt hurt because her ego
was shattered. What she learned about her past life shook her, and now she
wanted to forget it. I had warned her in the first place not to recall her past
life without sufficient preparation.
Since you have asked, I shall tell you a few basic things so
that you can understand the meaning of jati-smaran. But they won't help you to
experiment with it. Those who wish to experiment will have to look into it
separately.
The first thing is that if the purpose of jati-smaran is simply
to know one's past life, then one needs to turn one's mind away from the future.
Our mind is future-oriented, not past-oriented. Ordinarily, our mind is centered
in the future; it moves toward the future. The stream of our thoughts is
future-oriented, and it is in life's interests that the mind be future-oriented,
not past-oriented. Why be concerned with the past? It is gone, it is finished --
so we are interested in that which is about to come. That's why we keep asking
astrologers what is in store for us in the future. We are interested in finding
out what is going to happen in the future. One who wants to remember the past
has to give up, absolutely, any interest in the future. Because once the
flashlight of the mind is focused on the future; once the stream of thoughts has
begun to move towards the future, then it cannot be turned back towards the
past.
So the first thing one needs to do is to break oneself
completely away from the future for a few months, for a certain specific period
of time. One should decide that he will not think of the future for the next six
months. If a thought of the future does occur, he will simply salute it and let
it go; he will not become identified with and carried away by any feeling of
future. So the first thing is that, for six months, he will allow that there is
no future and will flow towards the past. And so, as soon as future is dropped,
the current of thoughts turns towards the past.
First you will have to go back in this life; it is not possible
to return to a past life all at once. And there are techniques for going back in
this life. For example, as I said earlier, you don't remember now what you did
on January 1, 1950.
There is a technique to find out. If you go into the meditation
which I have suggested, after ten minutes -- when the meditation has gone
deeper, the body is relaxed, the breathing is relaxed, the mind has become quiet
-- then let only one thing remain in your mind: "What took place on January 1,
1950?" Let your entire mind focus on it. If that remains the only note echoing
in your mind, in a few days you will all of a sudden find a curtain is raised:
the first of January appears and you begin to relive each and every event of
that day from dawn to dusk. And you will see the first of January in far more
detail than you may have seen it, in actuality, on that very day -- because on
that day, you may not have been this aware. So, first, you will need to
experiment by regressing in this life.
It is very easy to regress to the age of five; it becomes very
difficult to go beyond that age. And so, ordinarily, we cannot recall what
happened before the age of five; that is the farthest back we can go. A few
people might remember up to the third year, but beyond that it becomes extremely
difficult -- as if a barrier comes across the entrance and everything becomes
blocked. A person who becomes capable of recalling will be able to fully awaken
the memory of any day up to the age of five. The memory starts to be completely
revived.
Then one should test it. For example, note down the events of
today on a piece of paper and lock it away. Two years later recall this day:
open the note and compare your memory with it. You will be amazed to find that
you have been able to recall more than what was noted on the paper. The events
are certain to return to your memory.
Buddha has called this
alaya-vigyan. There exists a corner in our minds which Buddha has
named alaya-vigyan. Alaya-vigyan means the storehouse of consciousness. As we
store all our junk in the basement of a house, similarly, there is a storehouse
of consciousness that collects memories. Birth after birth, everything is stored
in it. Nothing is ever removed from there, because a man never knows when he
might need those things. The physical body changes, but, in our ongoing
existence, that storehouse continues, remains with us. One never knows when it
might be needed. And whatsoever we have done in our lives, whatsoever we have
experienced, known, lived -- everything is stored there.
One who can remember to the age of five can go beyond that age
-- it is not very difficult. The nature of the experiment will be the same.
Beyond the age of five there is yet another door which will lead you to the
point of your birth, to when you appeared on earth. Then one comes across
another difficulty, because the memories of one's stay in the mother's womb
never disappear either. One can penetrate these memories too, reaching to the
point of conception, to the moment when the genes of the mother and father unite
and the soul enters. A man can enter into his past lives only after having
reached this point; he cannot move into them directly. One has to undertake this
much of the return journey, only then is it possible to move into one's past
life as well.
After having entered the past life, the first memory to come up
will be of the last event that took place in that life. Remember, however, that
this will cause some difficulty and will make little sense. It is as if we run a
film from the end or read a novel backwards -- we feel lost. And so, entering
into one's past life for the first time will be quite confusing because the
sequence of events will be in the reverse order.
As you go back into your past life, you will come across death
first, then old age, youth, childhood, and then birth. It will be in reverse
order, and in that order it will be very difficult to figure out what is what.
So when the memory surfaces for the first time, you feel tremendously restless
and troubled, because it is difficult to make sense; it is as if you are looking
at a film or reading a novel from the end. Perhaps you will only make heads or
tails of an event after rearranging the order several times. So the greatest
effort involved in going back to the memories of one's past life is seeing, in
reverse order, events which ordinarily take place in the right order. But, after
all, what is the right or reverse order? It is just a question of how we entered
the world and how we departed from it.
We sow a seed in the beginning, and the flower appears in the
end. However, if one were to take a reverse look at this phenomenon, the flower
would come first, followed in sequence by the bud, the plant, the leaves, the
saplings and in the end the seed. Since we have no previous knowledge of this
reverse order, it takes a lot of time to rearrange memories coherently and to
figure out the nature of events clearly. The strangest thing is that death will
come first, followed by old age, illness, and then youth; things will occur in
the reverse order. Or, if you were married and then divorced, while going down
memory lane the divorce will come first, followed by the love and then the
marriage.
It will be extremely difficult to follow events in this
regressive fashion, because normally we understand things in a one-dimensional
way. Our minds are one-dimensional. To look at things in opposite order is very
difficult -- we are not used to such an experience; we are accustomed to moving
in a linear direction. With effort, however, one can understand the events of a
past life by following, in sequence, the reverse order. Surely, it will be an
incredible experience.
Going through memories in this reverse order will be a very
amazing experience, because seeing the divorce first and then the love and then
the marriage, will make it instantly clear that the divorce was inevitable --
the divorce was inherent in the kind of love that happened; the divorce was the
only ultimate possible outcome of the kind of marriage that took place. But at
the time of that past life marriage we hadn't the faintest idea it would
eventually end in divorce. And indeed, the divorce was the result of that
marriage. If we could see this whole thing in its entirety, then falling in love
today would become a totally different thing -- because now we could see the
divorce in it beforehand, now we could see the enmity around the corner even
before making the friendship.
The memory of the past life will completely turn this life
upside-down, because now you won't be able to live the way you lived in your
past life. In your previous life you felt -- and the same feeling exists even
now -- that success and great happiness were to be found by making a fortune.
What you will see first in your previous life is your state of unhappiness
before seeing how you made the fortune. This will clearly show that instead of
being a source of happiness, making the fortune led, in fact, to unhappiness --
and friendship led to enmity, what was thought to be love turned into hatred,
and what was considered a union resulted in separation. Then, for the first
time, you will see things in their right perspective, with their total import.
And this implication will change your life, will change the way you are living
now completely -- it will be an entirely different situation.
I have
heard that a man went to a monk and said, "I would be much obliged if you would
accept me as your disciple." The monk refused. The man asked why he would not
make him his disciple.
The monk replied, "In my previous birth I had disciples who
later turned into enemies. I have seen the whole thing and now I know that to
make disciples means to make enemies, to make friends means to sow the seeds of
enmity. Now I don't want to make any enemies, so I don't make any friends. I
have known that to be alone is enough. Drawing someone close to you is, in a
way, pushing the person away from you."
Buddha has said that the meeting
with the beloved brings joy and the parting of the unbeloved also brings joy,
that the parting of the beloved brings sorrow and the meeting with the unbeloved
brings sorrow as well. This is how it was perceived; this is how it was
understood. However, later we come to understand that the one we feel is our
beloved can become the unbeloved, and the one we considered the unbeloved can
become a beloved. And so, with the recollection of past memories, the existing
situations will change radically; they will be seen in an entirely different
perspective.
Such recollections are possible, though neither necessary nor
inevitable, and sometimes, in meditation, these memories may strike unexpectedly
as well. If the memories of past lives ever do come all of a sudden -- without
being involved in any experiment, but simply keeping on with one's meditation --
don't take much interest in them. Just look at them; be a witness to them --
because ordinarily the mind is incapable of bearing such vast turbulence all at
once. Attempting to cope with it, there is a distinct possibility of going
mad.
Once a girl was brought to me. She was about eleven years old.
Unexpectedly, she had remembered three of her past lives. She had not
experimented with anything; but often, for some reason mistakes do happen all of
a sudden. This was an error on the part of nature, not its grace upon her; in
some way nature had erred in her case. It is the same as if someone had three
eyes, or four arms -- this is an error. Four arms would be much weaker than two
arms; four arms couldn't work as effectively as two arms could -- four arms
would make the body weaker, not stronger.
So the girl, eleven years old, remembered three past lives, and
many inquiries were made into this case. In her previous life she had lived
about eighty miles from my present residence, and in that life she died at the
age of sixty. The people she lived with then are now the residents of my
hometown, and she could recognize all of them. Even in a crowd of thousands, she
could recognize her past relatives -- her own brother, her daughters, and her
grandchildren -- from the daughters, from the sons-in-law. She could recognize
her distant relatives and tell many things about them even they had
forgotten.
Her elder brother is still alive. On his head there is a scar
from a small injury. I asked the girl if she knew anything about that scar. The
girl laughed and said, "Even my brother doesn't know about it. Let him tell you
how and when he got that injury." The brother could not recall when the injury
occurred; he had no idea at all, he said.
The girl said, "On the day of his wedding, my brother fell while
he was mounting the marriage horse. He was ten years old then." The elderly
people in the town supported her story, admitting that the brother had, indeed,
fallen from the horse. And the man himself had no recollection of this event.
Then, as well, the girl displayed a treasure she had buried in the house she had
lived in during her previous life.
In her last birth she died at the age of sixty, and previous to
that birth she had been born in a village somewhere in Assam. Then she had died
at the age of seven. She could not give the village name, nor her address, but
she could speak as much of the Assamese language as a seven-year-old child
could. Also, she could dance and sing like a seven-year-old girl could. Many
inquiries were made, but her family from that life could not be
traced.
The girl has a past-life experience of sixty-seven years plus
eleven years of this life. You can see in her eyes the resemblance to a
seventy-five to seventy-eight-year-old woman, although she is actually eleven
years old. She cannot play with children of her own age because she feels too
old. Within her she carries the memory of seventy-eight years; she sees herself
as a seventy-eight-year-old woman. She cannot go to school because, although she
is eleven, she can easily look upon her teacher as her son. So even though her
body is eleven years old, her mind and personality are those of a
seventy-eight-year-old woman. She cannot play and frolic like a child; she is
only interested in the kinds of serious things old women talk about. She is in
agony; she is filled with tension. Her body and mind are not in harmony. She is
in a very sad and painful state.
I advised her parents to bring the girl to me, and to let me
help her forget the memories of her past lives. Just as there is a method to
revive memories, there is also a way to forget them. But her parents were
enjoying the whole affair! Crowds of people came to see the girl; they began to
worship her. The parents were not interested in having her forget the past. I
warned them the girl would go mad, but they turned a deaf ear. Today she is on
the verge of insanity, because she cannot bear the weight of so many memories.
Another problem is, how to get her married? She finds it difficult to conceive
of marriage when, in fact, she feels like an old woman of seventy-eight. There
is no harmony of any kind within her; her body is young but the mind is old. It
is a very difficult situation.
But this was an accident. You can also break open the passage
with an experiment. But it is not necessary to go in that direction; however,
those who still wish to pursue it, can experiment. But before moving into the
experiment it is essential they go through deep meditation so their minds can
become so silent and strong that when the flood of memories breaks upon them,
they can accept it as a witnessing. When a man grows into being a witness, past
lives appear to be no more than dreams to him. Then he is not tormented by the
memories; now they mean nothing more than dreams.
When one succeeds in recalling past lives and they begin to
appear like dreams, immediately one's present life begins to look like a dream
too. Those who have called this world maya have not done so just to propound a
doctrine of philosophy. Jati-smaran -- recalling past lives -- is at the base of
it. Whosoever has remembered his past lives, for him the whole affair has
suddenly turned into a dream, an illusion. Where are his friends of past lives?
Where are his relatives, his wife and children, the houses he lived in? Where is
that world? Where is everything he took to be so real? Where are those worries
that gave him sleepless nights? Where are those pains and sufferings that seemed
so insurmountable, that he carried like a dead weight on his back? And what
became of the happiness he longed for? What happened to everything he so toiled
and suffered for? If you ever remember your past life, and if you lived for
seventy years, then whatever you might have seen in those seventy years, would
that look like a dream or a reality? Indeed, it would look like a dream which
had come and withered away.
I have heard....
Once a king's only son
lay on his deathbed. For eight days he was in a coma -- he couldn't be saved nor
would death claim him. On the one hand the king prayed for his life, while on
the other hand, aware of so much pain and suffering all around, he felt the
futility of life at the same time. The king could not sleep for eight nights,
but then, around four o'clock one morning, sleep overtook him and he began to
dream.
We generally dream of those things which we have not fulfilled
in life, and so the king, sitting by his only son, his dying son, dreamed that
he had twelve strong and handsome sons. He saw himself as the emperor of a large
kingdom, as the ruler of the whole earth, with large and beautiful palaces. And
he saw himself as extremely happy. As he was dreaming all this....
Time runs faster in a dream; in a dream timing is totally
different from our day-to-day time. In a moment a dream can cover a span of many
years, and after waking up you will find it difficult to figure out how so many
years were covered in a dream that lasted just a few moments! Time actually
moves very fast in a dream; many years can be spanned in one moment.
So, just as the king was dreaming about his twelve sons and
their beautiful wives, about his palaces and the great kingdom, the ill,
twelve-year-old prince died. The queen screamed, and the king's sleep came to an
abrupt end. He awoke with a shock. Worriedly, the queen asked, "Why do you look
so frightened? Why are there no tears in your eyes? Why don't you say
something?
The king said, "No, I am not frightened, I am confused. I am in
a great quandary. I am wondering who I should cry for? Should I cry for the
twelve sons I had a moment ago, or should I cry for this son I have just lost?
The thing that's bothering me is, who has died? And the strange thing is that
when I was with those twelve sons, I had no knowledge of this son. He was
nowhere at all; there was no trace of him, or of you. Now that I am out of the
dream, this palace is here, you are here, my son is here -- but those palaces
and those sons have disappeared. Which is true? Is this true, or was that true?
I cannot figure it out."
Once you remember your past lives, you will find
it difficult to figure out whether what you are seeing in this life is true or
not. You will realize you have seen the same stuff many times before and none of
it has endured forever -- everything is lost. Then the question will arise: "Is
what I am seeing now just as true as what I saw before? ... Because this will
run its course too and fade away like all other previous dreams.
When we watch a movie it appears to be real. After the film has
ended, it takes us a few moments to come back to our reality, to acknowledge
that what we saw in the theater was merely an illusion. In fact, many people who
ordinarily are incapable of giving vent to their feelings are moved to tears in
a movie. They feel greatly relieved, because otherwise they would have had to
find some other pretext for releasing their feelings. They let themselves cry or
laugh in the theater. When we come out of the movie, the first thing that occurs
to us is how deeply we let ourselves become identified with the happenings on
the screen. If the same movie is seen every day the illusion gradually begins to
clear. But then we also forget what happened to us during the last movie, and
once again, when we go to a new film, we start believing in its
events.
If we could regain the memories of our past lives, our present
birth would also begin to look like a dream. How many times before have these
winds blown! How many times before have these clouds moved in the sky! They all
appeared and then they vanished, and so will the ones here now -- they are
already in the process of disappearing! If we can come to realize this, we will
experience what is known as maya. Along with this we will also experience that
a}l happenings, all events are quite unreal -- they are never identical, but
they are transient. One dream comes, is followed by another dream, and is
followed by yet another dream. The pilgrim starts from one moment and enters
into the next one. Moment after moment, the moments keep disappearing, but the
pilgrim continues moving on.
So two experiences occur simultaneously: one, the objective
world is an illusion, maya -- only the observer is real; second, what appears is
false -- only the seer, only the witness of it is true. Appearances change every
day -- they have always changed -- only the witness, the observer is the same as
before, changeless. And remember, as long as appearances seem real, your
attention will not focus on the onlooker, on the witness. Only when appearances
turn out to be unreal does one become aware of the witness.
Hence, I say, remembering past lives is
useful, but only after you have gone deeper into meditation. Go deep into
meditation so you may attain the ability to see life as a dream.
Becoming a mahatma, a holy man, is as much of a dream as becoming a thief -- you
can have good dreams and you can have bad dreams. And the interesting thing is
that the dream of being a thief is likely to dissolve soon, whereas the dream of
being a mahatma takes a little longer to disappear because it seems so very
enjoyable. And so the dream of being a mahatma is more dangerous than the dream
of being a thief. We want to prolong our enjoyable dreams, while the painful
ones dissolve by themselves. That's why it so often happens that a sinner
succeeds in attaining to God while a holy man does not.
I have told you a few things about remembering your past lives,
but you will have to go into meditation for this. Let us start to move within
from this very day onward; only then can we be prepared for what follows next.
Without this preparation, it is difficult to enter into past lives.
For example, there is a big house with underground cellars. If a
man, standing outside the house, wants to enter the cellars, he will first have
to step inside the house, because the way to the cellar is from inside the
house. Our past lives are like cellars. Once upon a time we lived there, and
then we abandoned them -- now we are living somewhere else. Nevertheless, we are
standing outside the house at this point. In order to uncover the memories of
past lives, we shall have to enter the house. There is nothing difficult,
bothersome or dangerous about it.
Source - Osho Book "And Now, And Here"
