But very few people are born unconsciously, and very few people die consciously. It is a natural arrangement of anesthesia. Before you die your whole biology releases all that makes you absolutely unconscious. It is the greatest surgery; nature has made a prearrangement for it. Only a very deep meditator, who has reached to samadhi will be able to avoid this poisoning, this oncoming cloud of unconsciousness. He will keep his light alive, his eyes open. Death will come and go. The body will be gone, the mind will be gone, but this essential awareness will enter another womb.

Hyakujo is saying, “That which knows birth is the unborn.” That one which knows the death, does not die. How can it die and know death at the same time?

One Sufi mystic, Omar Khayyam, has written a great book and became known worldwide. Hundreds of translations have happened, but all are full of misunderstandings. They thought that he was only a poet talking about this world. He was a mystic, and all that he was talking about was symbolic. His book’s name is The Rubaiyat. The rubaiyat is again a very special form of Persian poetry, just like a haiku.

In one of his rubaiyat he says to his friends not to be afraid of death for two reasons: if you die, you die. There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be nobody left behind, so there is no question of fear. If it is as the religions say, that you don’t die, then there is no question of being afraid, death does not happen. In either case, fear is irrelevant.

If you can die knowingly, that means the element that is passing through the tunnel of death, is separate from death. The life principle is eternal. It takes many forms, thousands of lives to become a man. Up to now nobody has appeared who is a superman.

Man, up to now, is the ultimate in the evolution of consciousness, but it is very superficial, very new. Underneath, there is deep unconsciousness. So when you die, that deep unconsciousness over floods your consciousness and you die without knowing what is happening. Everybody knows that you have died except you. And because the death is unconscious, your being born into a womb cannot be conscious.

Both the ends have to be the same: if death is conscious, then birth will be conscious. If death is unconscious, then the birth is unconscious. You don’t know anything about from where you are coming because you were not conscious about your birth. You are certainly coming from somewhere.

That which knows birth is the unborn. This is a very pregnant sentence. That which knows birth is beyond birth. That which knows death is beyond death. It is only a witness. It goes on only watching – that the old body is gone and the new womb has been made available, that a new body has started growing. In deep hypnosis you can be reminded of your experiences in the nine months of your mother’s womb. Nine months cannot go without any episodes. Your mother may fall down, your mother may be very angry, or very loving….