A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH - by Osho

So you can find three expressions about death in the history of human mind. One expression is of the ordinary man who lives attached to his body, who has never known anything greater than the pleasure of food or sex, whose whole life has been nothing but food and sex, who has enjoyed food, has enjoyed sex, whose life has been very primitive, whose life has been very gross, who has lived in the porch of his palace, never entered it, and who had been thinking that this is all life is. At the moment of death he will try to cling. He will resist death; he will fight death. Death will come as the enemy.

Hence, all over the world, in all societies, death is depicted as dark, as devilish. In India they say that the messenger of death is very ugly-dark, black-and he comes sitting on a very big ugly buffalo. This is the ordinary attitude. These people have missed: they have not been able to know all the dimensions of life. They have not been able to touch the depths of life and they have not been able to fly to the height of life. They missed the plenitude; they missed the benediction.

Then there is a second type of expression. Poets, philosophers, have sometimes said that death is nothing bad, death is nothing evil, it is just restful-a great rest, like sleep. This is better than the first. At least these people have known something beyond the body, they have known something of the mind. They have not had only food and sex, their whole life has not been only in eating and reproducing. They have a little sophistication of the soul; they are a little more aristocratic, more cultured. They say death is like great rest; one is tired and one goes into death and rests. It is restful. But they too are far away from the truth.

Those who have known life in its deepest core, they say that death is God. It is not only a rest but a resurrection, a new life, a new beginning; a new door opens.

When a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, was dying, people who had gathered around him-his disciples-were suddenly surprised, because when the last moment came his face became radiant, powerfully radiant. It had a beautiful aura. Bayazid was a beautiful man, and his disciples had always felt an aura around him, but they had not known anything like this; so radiant.
They asked, "Bayazid, tell us what has happened to you. What is happening to you? Before you leave us, give us your last message."
He opened his eyes and he said, "God is welcoming me. I am going into his embrace. Goodbye."
He closed his eyes, his breathing stopped. But at the moment his breathing stopped there was an explosion of light, the room became full of light, and then it disappeared.

When a person has known the transcendental in himself, death is nothing but another face of God. Then death has a dance to it. And unless you become capable of celebrating death itself, remember, you have missed life. The whole life is a preparation for this ultimate.

This is the meaning of this beautiful story.
When Rabbi Birnham lay dying, his wife burst into tears.
He said, "What are you crying for?
My whole life was only that I might learn how to die."

His whole life had been just a preparation, a preparation to learn the secrets of dying. All religions are nothing but a science-or an art-to teach you how to die. And the only way to teach you how to die is to teach you how to live. They are not separate. If you know what right living is, you will know what right dying is.
So the first thing, or the most fundamental thing is: how to live.

[From The Art of Dying , #1]