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

CHAPTER 15. LIFE AFTER DEATH AND REBIRTH
some communities in the East have thirteen-day long death rites. There are a few souls – souls
with very powerful memories – who take a year’s time for this purpose. Because of them, some of
our death rites are spread over a full year. Three to thirteen days are the general rule, and very few
souls survive without bodies for a full year; most of them are reborn with new bodies within a short
time.
A person who dies with awareness, who remains fully conscious and aware at the time of his death,
does not die really; he knows he is deathless. He is not dying, he is leaving his old body like we
discard old clothes. And a person who attains to such a state of deep awareness is rare; he is
free of all attachments and psychological memories. He has neither friends nor foes; he is free of all
cravings and desires. He is a class by himself; dying with awareness he will be born with awareness,
unencumbered by his past.
Just as one remembers his past for a while after death, so he does after his new birth too. A newborn
child carries with him for a brief time the memories of his previous life as a spirit. But by and by this
memory fades away and by the time he learns speaking it is completely lost. It is rare that a child
remembers his past life even after he is articulate and able to communicate with others. He is called
a freak of nature. He must have been a man of rare memory in his past existence.
In this context you also want to know if apart from going into it by way of mystical experiences there
is any philosophical support for reincarnation. It is only through logic that philosophical evidence in
support of reincarnation can be built. But logic suffers from an inherent weakness: it can be used as
powerfully both for and against a proposition. If one wants to describe logic rightly, and those who
know it well have said so, logic is like a lawyer or a prostitute who goes with anyone who pays the
fee.
There are those who have proved logically and philosophically that reincarnation is a fact, and there
are also those who have disproved and blasted this theory with the help or the same weapons of
logic and philosophy. Logic is a kind of sophistry; it is like a lawyer who supports the case of anyone
who pays his price. He has no viewpoint of his own, but he brings forth his whole reasoning skill to
support his client’s case. That is why logic is never able to establish anything – although it seems to
be convincing at face value – because the contrary point can be made as skillfully with the help of
logic. There is no difficulty about it. Logic is a double-edged sword which cuts with ways – for and
against a proposition.
For this reason philosophy can never prove or disprove the theory of reincarnation. Although
philosophy can say a lot it can go on saying for thousands of years, it will never succeed in its
endeavors. It is like a barren woman who looks to be complete, but cannot give birth to a child.
Logic has another side to it which is interest ing. You use logic to establish something that you
already believe to be true and right. Logic is just a means used to support your assumptions, your
pre-suppositions.
There is a well known professor in an Indian university who is conducting research on rebirth. Only
recently he came with a friend of mine to see me. At the very start of his conversation he asserted
that he was going to prove the theory of rebirth scientifically. I said to him it seemed his mind was
already made up in favor of rebirth and that he was looking for scientific evidence to support it.
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 292 Osho