Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 15. LIFE AFTER DEATH AND REBIRTH
Secondly, while Arvind is alone at the time of Krishna’s appearance, there are altogether five
hundred lamas to witness Buddha’s appearance. An event of mental projection is always personal,
you cannot make another person an associate with you. If you ask Arvind or any other person who
sees such visions, for that matter, to allow you to share his experience, he will just say no, it is
not possible. But when five hundred people see visions of Buddha together, it cannot be a case of
psychic projection. Not only that, all the people present compare notes and accept something as
real only when each of its ac counts tallies with another. As far as Arvind is concerned. he is his own
witness. And then while Arvind comes to it after long efforts, the lamas make no efforts whatsoever.
It is just the fulfillment of a promise made by another person in another time.
Question 3
QUESTIONER: CAN IT BE A CASE OF COLLECTIVE AUTO-SUGGESTION?
No, it is not possible. And there are reasons for it.
Anybody and everybody cannot be admitted into this council of five hundred lamas. There are very
strict criteria governing one’s admission into this group. Only those are admitted into it who fully
succeed in knowing their unconscious minds, because unless they are masters of their unconscious
they are not immune from individual or collective hypnosis. Hypnosis works upon one’s unconscious
mind and therefore when one becomes fully aware of his unconscious he cannot be hypnotized any
more. There is no way to hypnotize a person who has burned all the trash of his unconscious and
illumined his whole psyche. Now there is no such area in his mind where suggestions can be planted
so that they eventually become projected visions and images. That is why the lamas have very strict
rules regarding the admission of every new member. Only on the death of a sitting member a new
one is chosen to fill his place, and the way he is selected is very unusual.
There are strange and very difficult rules that govern the selection of a person for lamahood. Not
only his present life is investigated, even his past lives are looked into. To deserve this place, he
has to have a long record of sustained spiritual practice. For example, the present Dalai Lama
carries with him the soul of the previous Dalai Lama he has been selected to succeed. When the
lama dies he leaves behind him a coded message saying that he will take his next birth with certain
specific signs and the child that conforms to those signs should be selected as his successor. It
is an arduous and complicated process. The whole country is informed by beat of the drums that
if a child with specific signs is born in any family, the family concerned should inform the lamasery
concerned about his birth.
Similarly when the Dalai Lama dies, he leaves certain clues to find his successor. These clues are a
well-guarded secret, and thousands of children born after his death are interviewed to find out who
is the incarnation of the late Dalai Lama. And the child who answers all the queries and signs is
selected as the succeeding Dalai Lama.
Before they select a lama to fill the vacancy in the five hundred member council, they put him to
a lot of tests to ascertain that he has known his unconscious, and that he cannot be hypnotized
any more. So the question of collective hypnosis does not arise. And remember, when these five
hundred lamas gather together for visions of Buddha, they stand in utter silence, not even a word is
whispered around. It is an event altogether different from Arvind’s experience.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 289 Osho