OSHO

Birth

Birth is only an opportunity — you can make it or mar it. Birth is not equivalent to life. Almost everybody thinks that birth is equivalent to life; so it is bound to become a drag — just breathing, eating every day, going to sleep, waking up in the morning, going to the same office, the same files and the same routine. For idiots it is perfectly okay, but for anybody who has some intelligence it is bound to become drag. Because he can see — what is the point? Why after all am I living? If tomorrow is again going to be just a repetition of today, as today has been a repetition of yesterday, then why go on living? What is the point of unnecessarily repeating the same circle, the same routine, the same happenings? But the fallacy is in the fact that you have accepted a wrong concept, that birth is life. Birth is only an opportunity.
Either you can learn to live a beautiful life or you can just drag yourself towards the graveyard. It is up to you. There are people for whom life is a drag, and there are people for whom even death is a dance. I want to say to you that if you make your life an art, your death will be the culmination of the art — the highest peak, a beauty in itself.
- Beyond Enlightenment, Chapter #16

The first birth is only a physical birth; don’t be satisfied with it. It is necessary but not enough. A second birth is needed. The first birth was through your mother and father; the second birth is going to be out of the mind. You have to slip out of the mind and that will be your rebirth — you will be reborn.
- A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Chapter #1

When a person was dying, friends, relatives and acquaintances would gather together around him to give him the absolute certainty that he was going to die, and to help him to relax. Because if you can die in total relaxation, the quality of death changes and your new birth somewhere will be of a higher quality. The quality of birth is decided by death. And then, in turn, the quality of birth will decide the quality of another death. That’s how one goes higher and higher, that’s how one evolves. And whenever a person becomes absolutely certain about death a flame arises on his face — you can see it. In fact, a miracle happens: he becomes alive as he has never been before.
- Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter #8