Osho on Ekido (Zen Master) – Only a Zen master beats his disciples

Sometimes it happens that a Zen master can coincide the moment of your death with your enlightenment. In the right moment he can hit you: the body falls down — everybody can see that — but deep within the ego falls down also. Only you and the master know. It is not cruelty, it is the highest form of compassion, and only a very great master can do it. It is very subtle to feel the moment of your death, and to make it a point of inner transformation and transfiguration.

Look at this story and you may think-it is how the story appears-that the master killed his disciple. That is not the thing. The disciple was going to die anyhow; it was the moment for his death. The master knew it; he simply used the moment of death for the disciple’s enlightenment. But this is an inner secret, something esoteric, and I could not defend Ekido in a court with this. The court would say he is a murderer. Anyhow, there would be no way to prove he knew the disciple was going to die in that moment. Why not use death? An ignorant person cannot use life; an enlightened person can even use death. That’s how a master should be, using everything for enlightenment.

Ekido was just standing behind the disciple; he was beating the gong of the temple and the master was watching. If this disciple can die in awareness, death will become the turning-point of the wheel. If he can die in awareness, if he can fall but remain conscious, if the body can fall, but deep down he can remain centered, alert, aware, this will be the last death; he will not need to be reborn again. Remember, if you can die with full awareness the wheel of life stops; you can enter a new body only if you are unaware, unconscious. When someone dies fully conscious, this world disappears, there is no birth again.

That’s why we say an enlightened person never comes again. A buddha simply disappears; you will not be able to meet him again in the body. You can meet him in bodilessness — he is everywhere then — but not in the body. You cannot meet Buddha somewhere because only a body exists somewhere. When the body disappears Buddha exists everywhere, or nowhere. You can meet him here, you can meet him there, you can meet him anywhere, but don’t look for him in the body. The body exists somewhere; when the body disappears, the soul, the consciousness exists everywhere. You can meet Buddha anywhere; wherever you go you can meet him.

The body is there because the mind seeks desires through the body; desires cannot be fulfilled without the body. You can be completely fulfilled without the body, but desires cannot be fulfilled without the body. Desire needs the body; the body is the vehicle of desire. That’s why possession happens. You have heard, you must have heard, many stories about a ghost possessing somebody else. Why is a ghost so interested in possessing somebody else? It is because of desires. Desires cannot be fulfilled without a body, so he enters somebody’s body to fulfill his desires.

The same is the case when you enter a womb, enter into a fresh body, and start the journey of desires. But if you die alert, in that alertness not only the body dies, all desires evaporate. Then there is no entering into a womb. Then entering a womb is such a painful process, it is so painful that consciously you cannot do it; only unconsciously you can do it.

The English word anxiety comes from a Latin root which means narrowing down, and in the beginning the word was used for the entry of a soul into a womb. So the first anxiety is felt when a soul enters a womb, because everything is narrowed down; an infinite soul becomes a small body. This is the most painful process possible, as if the whole sky has been forced to enter into a seed. You don’t know it because it is so painful that you become totally unconscious.

There are two painful processes. You may have heard Buddha’s saying, “Birth is pain, death is pain.” These are the greatest pains, the greatest anguishes possible. When the infinite becomes finite in the womb, it is painful, it is anxiety; and when the infinite is taken out of the body again there is anguish and pain.

So whenever someone dies consciously, he disappears. Then there is no more entry into the body. Then there is no more anxiety, because anxiety is the consequence of desire; then you need not be narrowed down because there is no desire to be fulfilled. You can remain infinite; there is no need to enter a vehicle because now you are going nowhere.

This disciple who was beating the gong of the temple must have been near his death, close, and the master was standing behind him because of this fact. The disciple was going to die any moment. This is not said in the story, this cannot be said but this is how the thing happened; otherwise there was no need for the master to stand behind the disciple when he was beating the gong. There are many more important things for the master to do. Beating the going is just an ordinary thing, an everyday ritual. Why was the master standing behind him? This Ekido seems to be strange fellow. Had he not anything more significant to do? At that moment there was nothing more significant, because this disciple was going to die anyhow and this death had to be used. And only a master can use death — out of compassion. He was waiting to see whether he remained alert at the moment of death or not. He missed.