There is the presence of death when two lovers are sitting silently. In their silence, you will see certain happiness and also certain sadness – happiness because life is at its peak, and sadness because at its peak death also comes in. Generally, your silence brings sadness. Even looking at a rose flower, if you are sitting silently and not saying anything about the rose flower, just looking at it, in that silence you will suddenly feel it is there – death. You will see the flower withering, within moments it will be gone, lost forever. Such a beauty, and so fragile! Such a beauty, and so vulnerable! Such a beauty, such a miracle and soon it will be lost forever and it will not return again. Suddenly you will become sad. But this sadness is not the result of some loss or physical hurt, rather, it is the result of aestheticism which you have gained.

Whenever you meditate, I mean when you are deeply involved in an act, you will find death moving around. In love, in orgasm, in any aesthetic experience – in music, in song, in poetry, in dance – wherever you suddenly lose your ego, death is there.

It is very clear that if you are afraid of death, you are afraid of life. And I would like to teach you how to die so that you lose all fear of death. The moment you lose the fear of death you become capable of living.

Don’t think that I am against life because I am trying to present death in such a beautiful way? No, I am not against life and the bliss of life; on the contrary, I am madly in love with life! I am so madly in love with life, that because of it I have fallen in love with death also. It is part of life. When you love life totally how can you avoid death? You have to love death also. When you love a flower deeply, you love its withering away also. When you love a woman deeply, you love her getting old also, you one day love her death also. That is part, part of the woman. The old age has not happened from the outside, it has come from the inside. The beautiful face has become wrinkled now – you love those wrinkles also. They are part of your woman. You love a man and his hair has grown white – you love those hairs also. They have not happened from the outside; they are not accidents. Life is unfolding. Now the black hair has disappeared and the grey hair has come. You don’t reject them, you love them, they are a part. Then your man becomes old, becomes weak – you love that too. Then one day the man is gone – you love that too.

Love is simply love and it knows no boundaries. If you have love in you, you are without prejudice and choice because there is no alternative and you don’t need other things. Love loves all. Love knows nothing else than love. Hence, I say, love death. If you can love death it will be very simple to love life. If you can love even death, there is no problem.

If you repress life, you are definitely afraid of life. Repression can bring dangerous outcomes. If you go on repressing, repressing, one day you will lose all aesthetic sense. You lose all sense of beauty, sense of grace, sense of divinity. Then the very repression becomes such a feverish state that you can do anything which may be ugly.

There is a beautiful story which I would like to tell you at this point:

There was an army officer. Once he was sent to a distant island outpost. He did not find any women there. There were many monkeys near that outpost. That officer was shocked to see that without exception his fellow soldiers all made love with the monkeys, and he swore to them that he would never get that horny. The fellow soldiers told him not to be closed-minded. But as the months passed by, the officer could hold out no longer. One morning, the officer grabbed the first monkey he could and got caught in the act by his buddies, who started laughing their heads off.

The officer was surprised and he said to them, “What are you guys laughing at? You keep telling me to do it!”

The fellow soldiers said, “Yeah, but did you have to pick the ugliest one?”

This anecdote is quite relevant at this point because if you repress life, it is possible that you may choose the ugliest life. If you go on repressing, then the very fever is so much that you are not in your consciousness. Then you are almost in neurosis. Before the repression becomes too much, relax, move into life. It is your life! Don’t feel guilty. It is your life to live and love and to know and be. And whatsoever instincts existence has given to you, they are just indications of where you have to move, where you have to seek, where you have to find your fulfillment.

I know that this life is not all – a greater life is hidden behind it. But it is hidden behind it. You cannot find that greater life against this life; you have to find that greater life only by indulging deeply in this life. There are waves on the oceans. The ocean is hidden just behind the waves. If, seeing the turmoil and the chaos, you escape from the waves, you will be escaping from the ocean and its depth also. Jump in, those waves are part of it. Dive deep and waves will disappear, and then there will be the depth, the absolute silence of the ocean.

Life is here and now, so don’t postpone it, and don’t listen to the others who tell you to live your life this way or that way. Don’t ever suppress the blissful desire of living your life in your own way. Others have no place there. Just flow with the life.

The following joke from Italy will definitely give you the answer. All that I have written can be summed up in the following anecdote:

The Pope’s personal waiter was delivering His Holiness’ breakfast, when he slipped and threw the food all over the floor. “Godammit!” he screamed as he fell.

His Holiness came out of the door of his room and said, “No cursing in here, my son. Say instead, Ave Maria.”

The following morning as he attempted to deliver His Holiness’ breakfast, the waiter slipped again, throwing the food on the floor. “Godammit!” screamed the poor man.

“No, my son,” said the Pope. “Ave Maria.”

On the third day the waiter was trembling with fear, but this time he remembered. “Ave Maria!” he yelled out as soon as he started falling with the breakfast on the floor.

“No!” exclaimed the Pope. “Godammit! This is my third day of skipping breakfast! Enough is enough!”

You see this is enough. Now is the time for you to eat your breakfast. Mend your ways and take a plunge in the river of life. You cannot skip your breakfast every day. You cannot pardon them every day. You have to choose your way at last. This is the right moment, now and here. Don’t postpone it on fake pretences or the answers which have been fed into your mind.