”What Happens after death?

Indians are always thinking about life after death.

Indians come to me and they ask, ”What Happens after death?

”I tell them, ”Don’t talk nonsense – ask what happens before death.

The real question is before death, not after death. And whatsoever happens before death will continue to happen after death.

Don’t be worried about it.”But I can understand why they don’t ask about life.

They have all settled for the ugliness of it, they are not ready to change it.

This is hell, and created by the people themselves.

No devil is responsible for it.
You can change it.

Even if there is a hell, if the right people go there they will change it.

I have heard a story: An atheist asked a priest... because the priest had said in his discourse that day that people who believe in God and who do virtuous deeds go to heaven, and people who don’t believe in God and who are sinners go to hell.

An atheist raised his hand and asked, ”Sir, one question has to be solved then.

What about those people who don’t believe in God and yet do virtuous deeds, where will they go?

And what about those people who believe in God and yet are sinners, where will they go?”

The priest was at a loss, naturally.

If he says that the virtuous people will go to hell because they don't believe in God, it doesn’t look right.

Then what is the point of being virtuous? Then just believe in God and enjoy all the sins you can enjoy.

Why bother about being virtuous?

If he says that those people will go to heaven who believe in God and who are still sinners, then just belief is enough.

So God is not interested in what you do, he is not interested in your acts. You can kill, you can be a Genghis Khan or an Adolf Hitler, if you still believe in God.

And Adolf Hitler believed in God, remember. Genghis Khan believed in God, remember: before massacring thousands of people, every day in the early morning he would recite the Koran.

The first thing was namaz, prayer, and then he would go into all kinds of ugly things, unimaginable butchery.

The priest must have been a very sensitive person, alert.

He said, ”Please give me time.

The Question is difficult, it is not so easy. Next Sunday I will answer.”Those seven days were really hell for the priest; he tried this way and that, but nothing was going to work.

Sunday arrived, and he knew the atheist would be there, but not to turn up would be humiliating.

So he came a little early to pray to Jesus Christ, ”Help me! I am your servant, I have been speaking on your behalf.

Now help me – what is the clue?

This man has created such trouble!

”Praying to Christ – and for seven days he had not slept, thinking the whole night, thinking the whole day – he fell asleep before the statue of Christ and he had a dream.

In the dream he saw a train ready to leave for heaven. He jumped in. He said, ”This is perfectly right.

Why shouldn’t I go there and see with my own eyes? If I see Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tamburlaine, in heaven, then the question is solved.

Or if I see Socrates, who did not believe in God but was one of the most virtuous of men, if I see Gautama the Buddha, who did not believe in God but was one of the most godly persons who ever walked on the earth, then the question is solved.”

He rushed into the train and the train left.
He reached heaven.

He was a little surprised, puzzled,because heaven did not look very heavenly; it was very sad, dull and damp – no joy, nothing sunny,no song.

He had heard so much about the angels who go on playing on their harps and singing and dancing. No harps, no singing, no dancing.

Just a few stupid-looking saints sitting underneath their trees covered with dust.

He inquired – he went to the stationmaster and asked, ”Is there some mistake?

Is this really heaven?”

The stationmaster said, ”Yes, and there is no mistake.”But the priest said, ”It looks more like hell!

Is there any train leaving for hell? – because I would like to see hell, too, then I can compare.”

He got a reservation, went to hell – and he was really more surprised than he was seeing heaven.

There was joy, there was song and music – all was sunny and bright. People were working, people had lights in their eyes.

No devil, no hellfire, nobody torturing – nothing.

So he inquired: ”This looks more like heaven!”

And the stationmaster said, ”Yes, now it does, but before it used to be just the way it is described in your scriptures.

Since Buddha, Mahavira and Socrates came here, they have transformed it.”

OshO ❤️ 
CHAPTER 8. UTTERLY LUMINOUS
The White Lotus