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

CHAPTER 16. ATHEISM, THEISM AND REALITY
rubbish. All kinds of beliefs and superstitions have made this country their home. Now this belief
that a yogi’s dead body should not decompose is utterly stupid; nonetheless it should be examined.
I don’t accept that a yogi’s dead body does not deteriorate and disintegrate. It does and it should.
And if a yogi’s body is immune to decomposition there is no reason why it should not be immune to
death itself. In fact, degeneration, deterioration of a body is the beginning of its death. What is old
age but a deterioration of one’s body? And a yogi is no exception to the law of life. When a yogi’s
body obeys all other rules of life – it grows from youth to old age and dies – why should it defy only
one rule: that it cannot decompose after death? It will decompose as any other body does. It is
inevitable!
If one is a yogi, his soul, not his body will achieve enlightenment. And the soul is present in every
body, whether he is a yogi or not. Of course a yogi becomes aware of it; he comes to know that
he is a soul. But this knowledge does not alter the chemistry of matter – which is his body – in any
basic way. Even a yogi falls sick, but because of such beliefs we have to invent stories about our
great ones.
Mahavira died of dysentery. He suffered from this disease for a full six months before his death. So
the Jainas had to fabricate a story to explain away the whole thing. How can they accept that a great
yogi like Mahavira, who had undergone so many fasts should suffer from a disease like dysentery?
His stomach should have immunity from such a disease. Jaina scriptures say that in a period of
twelve years’ time Mahavira took food for only three hundred and sixty-five days. For months at a
stretch, he could go without food. How could a disease overcome him? In my view he was an ideal
case for dysentery, because he had tortured his stomach so much. But all those who believed that
he was a great yogi could not reconcile with this disease overtaking him. I have no such difficulty; to
me a great yogi remains a great yogi whether he suffers from dysentery or not.
But the Jainas had to invent a story that Mahavira’s dysentery was not an ordinary dysentery. They
said that Goshalak had tried to inflict this disease on him through a special esoteric device, a
mantra, and Mahavira had taken and absorbed it out of his great compassion. It is like stories
going around the country that such and such yogis were sick because in their compassion they took
upon themselves the diseases of their devotees. It is funny that we don’t allow our yogis even to get
sick on their own. These are stupidities that have pursued us down the ages.
Arvind was dead and his body decomposed and all talk of physical immortality became meaning
less. I say they were meaningless even before his death. Physical immortality has never happened
on this earth, and there are reasons for it. As Buddha says, whatever is put together is bound to
fall apart, because every such togetherness is transitory. If I throw a rock it is bound to fall to the
ground. It is my hand’s energy that makes it move and when that energy is spent the rock falls to
the ground. There is no rock in the world which is going to stay in space forever after it is thrown by
me or anyone else. Distance can be extended, but the fall is certain.
One who is born is destined to die. One can be physically immortal only if one does not come to
the earth through a regular process of birth, who materializes in physical form from nowhere without
seeking the medium of a mother’s womb. It is amusing that while you accept birth, which is one end
of life, you deny death, the other end. Both ends are together; whoever is born will die. No mortal
parents can give birth to a child with an immortal body. They will have to obey the laws of life which
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 308 Osho