Unless you know yourself as eternal beings, part of the whole, you will remain afraid of death. The fear of death is simply because you are not aware of your eternal source of life. Once the eternity of your being is realized, death becomes the greatest lie in existence.

Death has never happened, never happens, never will happen, because that which is, remains always – in different forms, on different levels, but there is no discontinuity.

Eternity in the past and eternity in the future both belong to you. And the present moment becomes a meeting point of two eternities: one going towards the past, one going towards the future.

You are asking, “When you talked about the ultimate death of this world, I got suddenly in touch with deep aloneness, and this voice inside me said, ‘Remember: each single moment, remember that you are alone.’” The remembrance has not to be only of the mind; your every fiber of being, your every cell of the body should remember it – not as a word, but as a deep feeling.

The English word sin has been corrupted by Christianity – they have given it a wrong meaning. Its original meaning is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of yourself is the only sin there is, and to remember yourself is the only virtue.

Gautam Buddha emphasized one single word continually for forty-two years, morning and evening; the word is sammasati – it means “right remembering.” You remember many things – you can become an Encyclopaedia Britannica; your mind is capable of remembering all the libraries of the world – but that is not the right remembering.

There is only one right remembering – the moment you remember yourself.

Gautam Buddha used to illustrate his point with the ancient story of a lioness who was jumping from one hillock to another hillock, and between the two hillocks a big flock of sheep was moving. The lioness was pregnant, and gave birth while she was jumping. Her cub fell into the flock of sheep, was brought up by the sheep, and naturally, he believed himself also to be a sheep. It was a little strange because he was so big, so different – but perhaps he was just a freak of nature…. He was vegetarian.

He grew up, and one day an old lion who was in search of food came close to the flock of sheep – and he could not believe his eyes. In the midst of the sheep, there was a young lion in its full glory, and the sheep were not afraid. He forgot about his food; he ran after the flock of sheep…and it was becoming more and more puzzling, because the young lion was also running away with the sheep. Finally he got hold of the young lion. He was crying and weeping and saying to the old lion, “Please, let me go with my people!”