First you don’t accept death; that is where the problem of suicide is. You are clinging too much to life.

Help is required to live totally, to die totally — not to protect from suicide. Death is as beautiful as life.  You have a certain idea that people are to be protected from death.  Death is beautiful, nothing is wrong with it. In fact sometimes life may be wrong, but death is never wrong because death is a relaxation, death is a surrender.

You are creating the problem out of your fear; it has nothing to do with your friend. His death has disturbed you: it has brought the fact into your consciousness that you will also have to die, and that you cannot accept. Now you want some consolation from me. I am not going to give any consolation to anybody. I give only truth, and death is as true as life. But people live with this idea that death is something inimical, it has to be avoided; as long as it is avoided, it is good. One has to live anyhow, one has to go on dragging. Even if life has no meaning, one has to go on living. One may be suffering, one may be paralyzed, one may be mad. One may not be of any use to anybody, one may be burden to oneself and each moment may be of ugly suffering, but still one has to live on as if life has some intrinsic value. This is the idea people carry in their mind: death is a taboo. But to me it is not. To me both life and death are beautiful; they are two aspects of the same energy.

So I have to help you to live and I have to help you to die: that is my way of protecting you. Let it be completely clear, otherwise you will always be confused. Somebody is ill, a sannyasin falls ill and then he starts wondering whether he can trust me because he has fallen ill. I am not here to protect you from illness. I am here to help you to understand illness, to go through it silently, witnessing it, seeing it, undisturbed. Illness is part of life. Now, if somebody thinks that I have to protect him against illness then he will never be able to understand me; he is here for the wrong reasons. If he is dying, I will help him to die.

Death can be a great glory, it can be a great peak. Death always disturbs people because they reject it. You have a rejection, you are against death. You don’t want to die, you would like to remain forever and ever; but that is not possible. This is the first thing.

The second thing is: because it was not even a natural death, it was a suicide, you have the idea that I should protect sannyasins. I should prevent suicide, no sannyasin should commit a suicide. Why? It is part of your freedom. If a sannyasin decides that the game is over and he wants to go home, then who am I to prevent him? I will simply say, “Go happily and dancingly. Don’t go sadly; make it a happy journey back home.”

But that sannyasin never asked me_ Even if he had, 1 would have told him. “This is your freedom, I don’t interfere in your freedom. It is your life, it is your death; who am I to interfere? All that I can do is make available to you the skill that makes everything beautiful.” And a suicide can also be beautiful.

You will be surprised that in India there exists a religion, Jainism, that allows suicide; allows it as a religious act! It allows its sannyasins to commit suicide if they decide to do it. I think that is one of the greatest acceptances of freedom; no other religion has dared that much. Sooner or later every nation in the world will have to accept suicide as a fundamental right, because if a person wants to die, then who are you — your courts, your police and your law — to prevent him? Who are you? Who has given you the right? Why should he be made to feel guilty? Why should he be made to feel a criminal? Why can’t he invite his friends and die dancing and singing? Why should he commit it like a crime?

Suicide is not a crime; your law makes it a crime. In a better world where freedom is respected more, if a person wants to die, he will invite his friends along. For a few days he will live with his friends, he will dance and sing and listen to good music, read poetry and go visiting neighbours to say good-bye. One day all will gather together and he will simply die. And they will have given him a good send-off! In a better world suicide will not be a crime.

You just have to change your attitude. And you have to be very clear about me: I am not an ordinary teacher who consoles people. My commitment is towards truth, not towards consolation. Howsoever uncomfortable the truth is, my commitment is towards truth. This to me is a sacred phenomenon, freedom. If he decides to commit suicide, that’s perfectly okay; you should be able to give that freedom to him. You are resisting it; he has already committed suicide and you are not giving him permission to go through with it. That is your problem, that is not his problem. He has not created the problem, he has simply provoked a problem which has always been in you. Now let him go, say good-bye, relax and understand it.

This moment of sadness can become one of great understanding, because something has been touched deep down in your heart. Now don’t waste time! Meditate over it, look at it from every corner, from every angle. Don’t just be angry, don’t just be sad; let it become a great moment of meditation too. Yes, sadness is there, anger is there, as if he had cheated you. He was your friend and he didn’t even say anything to you. How dare he? He deceived you! That’s why you are feeling great anger deep down. And you are angry at me too; how could I allow it? He never asked me, but if he had, I would have allowed him. But he never asked me. In fact there is no need to ask; if he wants to go, he wants to go.

All is good. Yes, even suicide is good. It takes guts to accept that. The first taboo in the world was sex, and sex is by and by being accepted. Now suicide needs a Freud in the world, someone like a Freud, who destroys the second taboo. These two are the taboos: sex and death. Now somebody is needed to make death acceptable, rejoice-able; someone to destroy the myth that something is wrong in it, that only cowards commit suicide. That is wrong. In fact just the reverse is the case: cowards go on clinging to life. But sometimes a man comes to a point where he sees there is no sense in living. He gives the ticket back to God. He says, “Keep your world, I am going. I don’t want to see this film anymore.”

I have heard about George Bernard Shaw that he was invited to see a drama. In the middle he suddenly got up.

The author asked, “Where are you going?”

He said, “I have seen half of it.”

The author said, “But half is still to come!”

Bernard Shaw said, “But it is written by the same man, so I have punished with it!” One has seen half of life, then one sees that it is written by the same man, so what is the point in staying? You go home and rest!

Meditate over it — it is a beautiful moment. You are sad, angry, yes; but meditate on it. And you will be benefited. That sannyasin has done some good service to a few people. Don’t waste this moment just in being angry and sad; bring meditation to it, think over it: why are you feeling this? And make it a problem of yours. Don’t throw the responsibility on him, because that is pointless. That’s what we do: we ask ourselves why did he commit suicide? That is not the point. Why it hurts you — that is the problem. Why he killed himself is for him to decide. Why didn’t he say anything to you? That is also for him to decide. Who knows why he decided not to say anything to anybody? Who knows why he decided to do it on that particular day?  He seems to have died very peacefully. One of the commune’s doctors was there to see him when he died: he was lying on the road very peacefully, almost as if he had fallen asleep there, one hand under his head, as if the turmoil is gone, the storm is finished.

That is not the problem — why he did it, why he didn’t say anything. This is also not the problem — why Osho didn’t prevent him doing it, why he didn’t take care. That too is not a problem for you. The problem for you is: Why can’t you accept it? Where does it hurt? You have to go into it deeply, find the wound and go into it. And it will be a great revelation to you that you don’t accept death, that you are afraid of death, that even your relationship with me is not a relationship of trust but only of consolation, of greed. You want to use me for some of your ideas: that I should protect you, that I am a kind of security to you. I am not! 1 am not a guarantee for anything. I am a very irresponsible man. Those who join hands with me have to join hands with me in total awareness that they are coming along with an irresponsible man who follows no morality, who knows no principles, who has no so-called values, who is utterly chaotic and who trusts life and its chaos absolutely. So whatsoever life brings is good for me.

Go into these things and see how your relationship to me is affected by his death, why your trust is shaken, what you were hoping for. There must have been some deep motive behind it, and that motive is disturbed. If you can meditate, you will come out of it very fresh and new, and you will be thankful to him. And don’t be worried about him: he is already born, he has found a mother. There are so many foolish women around the world — you cannot avoid being born again! So don’t be worried. There is every possibility that within two, three years, he will be back here as a child. The day he comes I will declare, “This is him!” Just wait!

I have attempted suicide a number of times, and feel really attracted to death. This disturbs me, but at the same time gives me joy. Will you say something about it?

This is great! One can commit suicide only once, and you have attempted many times — and you are still alive. Those attempts were not true, they were all bogus, and you knew it even then.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin wanted to commit suicide. Being a man of great cleverness he made all the arrangements, left no loopholes. Perhaps nobody else had attempted suicide in that way. He went on top of a hill taking a pistol with him. Just underneath the hill, deep down, was a river, very dangerous, deep, and surrounded by all kinds of rocks. On the hill there was a tree — he had also brought a rope. Not to take any chances he figured out all the possible things so that suicide was absolutely certain. He also carried with him a big container full of kerosene oil.

He hanged himself from the tree, but because he was going to do many more things, he could not take his feet from the earth — because then how was he going to do other things? So he was hanging from the tree and standing on the earth. Then he poured kerosene oil over himself; he had brought a lighter too. He created a fire, the kerosene oil was burning all around him. But he was not a man to take any chances, so he also shot a bullet into his head. But the bullet cut the rope, he fell down into the river, and the river water destroyed the fire!

Desperately, he was coming back home when I met him. I asked, “You are still alive after all that arrangement?”  He said, “What to do? I know how to swim!” Everything failed!

You say you have attempted suicide many times. One thing is certain: you don’t want to commit suicide, you want to play with the idea. And you feel also that there is fear about death and there is also a certain joy. This is not only your situation. It is a very common human phenomenon. Life is a torture, a burden; it is anguish. One wants to get rid of it. To get rid of it means getting rid of all the anguish, the despair, the hopelessness, the meaninglessness, this wife, this husband, these kids, this job; hence there is an attraction towards death, because death will put an end to all your misery. But it will also put an end to you — that creates fear.

You really want to live, and live forever, but you want to live in paradise. And you are living in a hell! You want to get rid of the hell, you don’t want to get rid of yourself. And I want to emphasize that you are your own hell. So suicide is attractive from one side in that it will put an end to all your miseries, but on the other hand there is a great fear: it will finish you too.

Isn’t there some way that the miseries can be finished and you can live more intensely? I also teach you that a certain suicide can help you — the suicide of the ego, not of you. Let the ego die, and then see that with it all problems disappear. You are left full of joy, blessedness, and each moment goes on opening new doors to new mysteries. Each moment becomes a moment of discovery — and it is an unending process.

You have attempted so many times to commit suicide. This time you commit suicide my style! And anyway, you have failed so much that you must have become very much of an expert in failing. And deep down you don’t want to die because you are afraid of death — which is natural. Why should one put an end to one’s life when life has not even been lived? You have not even tasted it, you have not explored the multidimensional beauties, joys and blessings of life.

Naturally you are afraid. But still you go on attempting it because you don’t know how to get rid of all the miseries. Suicide seems to be the simplest way. You are in a split: half of your mind says, “Commit suicide and be finished with all this nonsense — enough is enough.” The other part tries to sabotage your effort, because the other part wants to live; you have not lived yet.

Suicide is not going to help. Only more life, more abundant life, is going to help. So this time kill the ego, and see the miracle happen. With the ego gone there is no misery, no anguish, and no need to commit suicide. With the ego gone all the doors that were closed by the ego suddenly open and you are available to the sun, to the moon, to the stars. And it is easier, because to kill the ego you don’t need a pistol, kerosene oil, a rope to hang the ego, fire to burn the ego, and if everything fails, then a deep mountainous river underneath to finish the ego.  You don’t need any of these things, because the ego is only a creation of the society, of the religions, of the culture. It does not exist in fact. You have only to look deeply into it; it is a shadow.

You have to look into it, and it is not there. Meditation is simply a method of looking into what this ego is. And whoever has ever looked in has not found it. Without any exception, throughout the history of man, whoever has looked inwards has not come across any ego.

This is the suicide of the ego. Nothing has to be done, just a little turning in. And once you know it is not there, then all the sufferings that you were carrying because of a non-existential ego disappear. They cannot have any nourishment anymore. All these things have been created in your mind by conditioning, by programming; that’s what the society has done to you. We have lived the whole of history in an ugly way….

You think you are a Christian? It is just an idea implanted in you. Do you think there is a God? An idea implanted in you. Do you think there is a heaven and hell? It is nothing but programming. You are all programmed.

My work with you is to deprogram you. And I am showing you all the notes — day after day, continuously — that these are the things that have made you almost dull, stupid, even attracted towards suicide, towards death. My religion is unique in this way: all the religions of the past have programmed people; I deprogram you, and then I leave you alone, to yourself.

I deprogram you, and I don’t give you any other program. I leave you alone, empty, just a zero. In that zero, the ego disappears and all the blessings start showering on you.”