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First: this is a sort of calamity that has befallen human beings. Somehow, when things are going beautifully, and you feel calm and quiet and collected, why do you start thinking of death?

The questioner says: While in a peaceful state of being, I watched a bird flying by. I thought, "This would be a nice time to die."

Why not think: This would be a nice time to live! Why think: This would be a nice time to die! Something is implied in all over the world, and in the West more so, people have been taught not to be happy, not to enjoy life, not to be ecstatic. People have been taught that to be happy is somehow to be guilty. People have become deep down very much conditioned: when they feel happy, they almost always feel guilt arising. When they feel sad, everything is good. When they are depressed, nothing is wrong. When they are serious, there is no guilt.

Have you watched it? Dancing with a woman, suddenly you feel guilty. Making love to a woman, suddenly you feel guilty. Enjoying your food, suddenly you start looking guilty. Have you watched? Whenever there is happiness something of guilt arises in you. This never happens when you are sad; when you are depressed, when you are carrying a long face, then this never happens. But if you are smiling... people even feel afraid to laugh; they laugh reluctantly, as if they are going to do something wrong. The whole humanity has been conditioned to be unhappy. All happiness has been condemned as sin.

That's why saints are painted as if they never laugh. Christians, in fact, say that Jesus never laughed. This is absurd! If Jesus was an enlightened man, only he is entitled to laugh. But Christians say he never laughed. Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing? So dead, dull, serious, deathlike. All Jesus' pictures are falsifications; they cannot be about the real Jesus. This real man must have been totally different, because we know he enjoyed drinking -- it is impossible to think of a person who enjoys drinking and not laughing. He enjoyed women -- it is difficult to think of a man who enjoys women and not laughing. He was friendly, almost in love, with a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. It is difficult to move with a prostitute -- he was not moving with a Catholic monk, not with a priest, not with the Pope... with a prostitute! These were the condemnations against him. And he was moving with simple people, simple folk -- carpenters, farmers -- very uneducated people. You cannot expect them to be serious. He was not moving with scholars, with professors, with vice-chancellors -- no. He was moving with very simple people, ordinary people, down-to-earth people. It is impossible to think that he was not laughing. Late in the nights they would enjoy food and drink. He must have been gossiping, he must have been telling jokes.

But Jesus has been depicted as a serious man. And Christians say he never laughed. Then what is the function of an enlightened man? If Jesus cannot laugh, then who is going to laugh in this world? Somehow man has been conditioned to be unhappy. Happiness seems to be hedonistic, epicurean, pagan. A religious man has to be serious, has to carry a long face, a mask; he cannot smile. He cannot enjoy the small things of life -- his ego won't allow it. His ego keeps aloof, away, distant. He will not meet and mingle with ordinary people, and he will not enjoy ordinary gossiping. He will always remain aloof, far away.

This is an egoistic attitude, this is pious ego -- and a pious ego is more poisoned than ordinary egos because it is purer: it is pure poison. And these people have conditioned the human mind. They are neurotic people. Something is missing -- they are not normal, they are not healthy; they are morbid, ill. These ill people have conditioned humanity's mind. They have destroyed laughter from the earth, they have destroyed festivity. They have destroyed celebration -- and destroying celebration they have destroyed the very foundation of God. Life is a celebration!

Because of this conditioning, whenever you are feeling happy you think, "This is the right moment to die." Why not to live?! When you are miserable, that is the right moment to live; and when you are feeling happy, this is the right moment to die. Drop this nonsense! When a bird flies by and you are feeling peaceful, this is the moment to live and love and dance. Why be in a hurry for death? Death is coming on its own. It need not have any support from you. It is already coming.

While you are alive, be so alive that even death when it comes cannot kill you. A really alive person transcends death. Death happens only to dead people. Let me repeat it: Death happens only to dead people; who are already dead, only to those people does death happen. A really alive person transcends death, goes beyond death. Death comes, but misses the target. How can you kill a person like Buddha? How can you kill a person like Jesus? How can you kill Krishna with his flute on his lips? -- impossible. Death itself will start dancing around him! His life is so abundant that death itself will fall in love with him.

Always remember that to be happy is to be religious, to be happy is to be virtuous. To be celebrating is to be prayerful. To be festive, and to remain in a festive dimension continuously, is to be a sannyasin. Then you enjoy whatsoever happens. You enjoy health when it happens; you enjoy illness also when it happens. Then both become beautiful. In health you enjoy activity; when you are ill you enjoy relaxation. It is beautiful sometimes to be ill and just Lying on the bed, resting, not worrying about the world; allowing yourself a good holiday; singing, praying, meditating on the bed; reading a little bit, listening to music; or just doing nothing, just being lazy. It is beautiful! If you know how to enjoy health, you will be able to know how to enjoy illness also. Then you become a master, you become skillful.

This is the whole art of life!

You enjoy your youth, and when you become old you enjoy your old age. Old age has its own beauties; no young man can have those beauties. Youth is shallow; full of energy but shallow. Old age is not so full of energy, but things are settling and depth is arising. If you miss your youth, you will miss your old age also -- remember. So I am not saying become old while you are young. I am saying be whatsoever you are; let that moment be your totality. When a child, be a child; never enforce your wisdom on any child because that is a crippling thing. Don't try to make a child old before he is old, don't crush him.

That's what has happened in the world: old people are dominating children, and they want to pull them out of their childhood faster than nature allows. They kill and they crush -- the child loses something forever. And when a child was not a child when he was a child, he will not be young when he is young. Something will always go on missing. He will always be late in life -- he will miss the train. That's why so many people dream of missing the train. This is one of the commonest dreams in the world: people rushing towards the railway station, doing everything in a hurry; somehow they reach on the platform and the train is moving, or has moved, and they just see the last bogie leaving the platform. This is the commonest dream; it is very significant. It simply shows that somehow you have been missing the train that life is. You always reach late; you are never in time. And the wonder of wonders is that everybody is studying the timetable so much. People go on studying the timetable, but when they reach they are always late. They waste their time with the timetable.

This is what is happening when you read the Bible or you read the Koran or you read the Gita -- these are timetables. And reading the timetables you miss the train of life. Good sometimes to read them, when you have nothing else to do -- but don't make them a substitute for life. They are nothing compared to life. While you can read the book of life, don't substitute it by any other book. When you can read a tree, read the tree! When you can read the rosebush, read the rosebush! When you can read a man, read the man! When you can read a woman, read the woman! These are alive books, the real Bibles. But you are too much concerned with dead books, and by the time you raise your eyes, the train has left.

A child has to be a child when he is a child. A young man has to be a young man when he is a young man. An old man has to be an old man when he is old. If you miss your youth then you will be in difficulty: you will never be really old; your body will start deteriorating and your mind will hanker around your youth. The unfulfilled desires, the sensuality, the sexuality, the greed, the ambition -- all that you always wanted to do and could not because at that time you were reading the Bible or the Gita -- now will haunt you. Now your mind will go after those things.

I was reading one beautiful story about a missionary.

He went to Africa to teach Christianity to a cannibal tribe. He was talking to the chief of the cannibal tribe -- a very old man, near about eighty-five, ninety. The cannibal listened very attentively, then he asked a few questions. One he said: "So do you mean to say to me that I should not fall in love with my neighbor's wife?" The missionary said, "Yes, you have understood rightly." And then the chief said, "And do you mean to say to me that I should not kill anybody in a fight?" The missionary was very happy. He said, "Perfectly right! You have understood me." The cannibal said, "Do you mean to say that robbing some body of his property or killing him in the fight or taking his wife as your own wife is wrong, immoral, a sin?" The missionary said, "Absolutely, absolutely!" The chief said, "But I can't understand -- because I am too old to do all these things. So do you mean to say that to be an old man and to be a Christian are the same?"

Your so-called religions are just religions created by dead people. They don't allow you life. They don't allow you love. They go on condemning all that is beautiful and all that is right at the time. My whole emphasis is to live the moment whatsoever it is, and live it with tremendous energy. If you are a young man while young, you will be an old man while old -- very wise. You will have known all that is good and bad in life: the day and night, the summer and winter -- all you will have have known. By your own experience a wisdom will arise. And when you are dying, you will have enjoyed your life so tremendously that you will be able to enjoy your death also.

Only a person who has enjoyed his life becomes capable of enjoying his death. And if you are capable of enjoying your death, you have defeated death. Then there is no more birth for you and no more death for you -- you have learnt the lesson. This is what we call enlightenment: learning the lesson that life can teach you.

The questioner says: "While in a peaceful state of being, I watched a bird flying by. I thought, 'This would be a nice time to die.'"

This thought must have come out of your Christian background, the so-called, the pseudo-religious background, life-negating background -- otherwise you would have thought: "Nice time to live!" And you are alive so think in terms of life. Why do you think in terms of death? There must be some suicidal tendency in you. This I have watched in many people.

Once I took one of my professors -- he was my teacher -- I took him to a very beautiful place. Nothing like it exists anywhere in the world. I used to live in Jabalpur, and just thirteen miles away from there flows the beautiful River Narmada. Two miles amidst hills of marble, two miles' stretch of marble hills: it is something not of this world. On a full-moon night it is unbelievable; you cannot believe that it is there. It is so unreal! It has such a hypnotic energy in it. I took my old professor on a full-moon night, just in the middle of the night when the moon is just on the head. He could not believe that such a beautiful thing is possible on this earth. He said, "What a beautiful place to die!"

But why does this idea arise? "What a beautiful place to live!" would have been absolutely relevant. "What a beautiful place to love! What a beautiful place to dance! and sing!" would have been relevant. But the idea arises: "What a beautiful place to die!" Why this death-obsession? Can't you enjoy anything? Can't you delight in anything?

Become aware of such tendencies. And next time when a beautiful moment passes by -- dance! sing! paint! love! Death will take care of itself. It will come one day. Be ripe when it comes -- and the only ripeness that is possible is through living. Live deeply, live totally, live wholly, so when death comes and knocks at your door you are ready -- ready like a ripe fruit to drop. Just a small breeze comes and the fruit drops; sometimes even without the breeze the fruit drops from its own weight and ripeness. Death should be like that. And the readiness has to come through living.

The questioner asks: "Yet during the 'stop'-exercise when I was feeling some discomfort I experienced maybe as much separation as ever."

You think about death and you become disturbed by small things: a headache, an ant crawling on your body. You become distracted by such small things, small discomforts -- and you talk about death. Maybe you don't know what death is; maybe you have only heard the name. And you have seen people dying, but you yourself have never seen death.

In fact, when a person dies you see him lying in repose -- silent, relaxed, with no discomfort. You think death is not a discomfort? You are seeing only a dead person; you have not seen his inner misery, you have not seen his inner conflict. You have not seen his inner struggle with death. You have not seen his inner anguish and turmoil. You just see the dead body -- painted, dressed well, washed, cleaned.

One man died. Mulla Nasrudin went to see with his wife. And the wife said, "Looks so beautiful and so silent!" Nasrudin said, "Has to look beautiful and silent -- is coming from Kashmir, three months' holiday!"

Watch a dead person -- every person looks beautiful, silent. Not that he died in silence, not that he died beautifully -- rarely does a person die beautifully. Ninety-nine percent of people struggle very badly -- fight, great stress arises.

Just think! -- a small ant crawling on your body, a small thorn in your foot, and how uncomfortable you become. A small headache, stomach a little disturbed, and how much you become concerned. Just think! -- the body and soul are being taken apart. With the body you have become so involved; you have completely forgotten that you are a soul -- and you are being taken apart. You cling. You leave your claim with great difficulty, very reluctantly -- fighting, struggling, crying. But nobody can see it; it is something inside you -- only you can see it. You cannot even say anything. You die in misery.

Only a few people die blissfully. And when death becomes a bliss, it is a samadhi. When death is a relaxation...real relaxation. Deep inside you surrender, you welcome. You have known life, now you want to know death also. You have lived life, you have enjoyed it. A great trust has arisen in you about life -- and you know death is the culmination of life, the crescendo. It must be beautiful! When the whole journey has been beautiful, why not the goal? There is no reason to be afraid. When the whole journey has been such a tremendous joy, why not the end? It is the culmination. You have come home. You welcome, you are ready to embrace death. You relax, you simply slip into death.

And that's the moment! If you can die without any fight, you don't die -- and you are never born again. You have simply slipped out of the body confinements -- of the world. You live! -- you live eternally. But then you live as an unembodied existence, with no limitations, with no boundaries.

Body gives you a boundary. Death takes away all boundaries from you. Body gives you a definition, makes you a man or a woman, makes you ugly or beautiful, makes you intelligent or unintelligent, makes you this and that -- body gives you definition. Death takes all definitions away. It simply leaves life undefined.

Life undefined is what God is. But to know this death you will have to know life well. So if you can accept my suggestion: next time when a beautiful moment passes by, think in terms of life -- "What a beautiful moment to live and dance and be alive!" Then one day when death comes, you will say the same to death: "What a beautiful moment to die!"

All moments are beautiful, only you have to be receptive and surrendering. All moments are blessings, only you have to be capable of seeing. All moments are benedictions. If you accept with a deep gratitude, nothing ever goes wrong.

Do the conditions of the particular moment of death determine something about the nature of an enlightened being? Or vice versa?

Vice versa. Death does not determine, neither does the time of death determine anything. It is you, conscious or unconscious, who determine the meaning of death. It is an enlightened consciousness that makes death so beautiful, so tremendously beautiful. You are making even life ugly, and an enlightened man makes even death beautiful.

It is you in the final analysis, always you, the decisive factor, who decide whatsoever happens to you. Remember it. This is the very key. If you are unhappy, it is you. If you are not living rightly, it is you. If you are missing, it is you. The responsibility is totally yours. Don't be afraid of this responsibility.

Many people become too much afraid of the responsibility because they don't see the other side of the coin. On one side is written 'responsibility'; on another side is written 'freedom'. Responsibility means freedom. If somebody else is forcing you to be in misery, then you cannot get out of it -- how can you get out of it if somebody else is forcing you into misery? Unless the other decides not to make you miserable you can never get out of it. If it is you who are responsible for your misery, then it is for you to decide. If you are enjoying being miserable, be miserable thousandfold -- there is no problem. Enjoy! If you are not enjoying it, then drop it. Be clear-cut.

What I see is: people go on thinking that they want to be happy, but what can they do? -- they are being forced to be miserable. This is absolutely absurd. Nobody is forcing anybody -- nobody can force anybody -- to be miserable. A man who knows how to be happy becomes happy in any sort of situation. You cannot give him any situation in which he will not find something to be happy about.

And there are persons who have learnt the trick of being unhappy. You cannot give them any situation in which they will not find something to be unhappy about. Whatsoever you want to find, you will find. Life goes on supplying all sorts of things to you. You choose!

I have heard:

Two men were imprisoned. It was a full-moon night; both were standing near the window of their dark cell. The full moon was there. One was looking at the moon, and it was the rainy season -- must have been like these days -- and there was much water and mud just in front of the window. Dirty, and it was smelling and stinking.

One man continued to look at the moon, the other continued to look at the mud. And the man who was looking at the mud, of course, was feeling very miserable. And the man who was looking at the moon was aflame, aglow; his face was reflecting the moon; his eyes were full of beauty. He had completely forgotten that he was imprisoned.

Both are standing at the same window, but they are choosing different things.

There are people: if you take them to a rosebush they will count the thorns; they are great calculators -- their mathematics is always right. And when they have counted thousands of thorns, it is simply logical that they will not be able to see the one roseflower. In fact, their inner world will say, "How is it possible? -- amidst so many thorns, how is a roseflower possible? It must be a deception, it must be illusory. Or even if it is possible, it is worthless."

Then there are people who have never known the thorns of a rosebush -- they look at the rose. And looking at the rose, feeling the rose, the beauty of it, celebrating the moment, they come to feel that even thorns are not so thornlike. "How can they be when they are growing on the same rosebush as the roseflower?" When their mind is focused on the roseflower, they start looking at thorns also in a different way: they start thinking that thorns are there to protect the roseflower. They are no longer ugly, they are no longer irrelevant; they are no longer anti -- a positive attitude arises.

It is up to you to make whatsoever you want out of your life. An enlightened consciousness makes even death beautiful. An unenlightened consciousness makes even life ugly. For an enlightened consciousness, only beauty exists -- only beauty; only bliss exists -- only bliss.

So the question is not how to change ugliness into beauty, how to change pain into pleasure, how to change misery into happiness. No. The question is how to change the unconscious into conscious, the unenlightened attitude into the enlightened attitude -- how to change your inner world of being, how to attain to life-affirmative values and drop life-negative values.