Osho & Vimalkirti - Puna - India

Swami Vimalkirti, formerly Prince Welf von Hannover, dies from an hereditary condition. Osho announces that he died enlightened, and his Mahaparanirvana is celebrated.

Just the other day one of our beautiful sannyasins, Vimalkirti, who belongs to the royal family of Germany, he is the great-grandson of the last German Emperor, suddenly collapsed.
He was doing karate and his breathing stopped. His heart is functioning perfectly well, but the brain centre that controls the breathing is no longer functioning. There has been a haemorrhage; some blood has covered the breathing centre in the brain.

I went to see him last night and although he is in a coma a part of him immediately felt my presence. When I touched him he responded. That response is not of the brain, that response is not of the body. The body is in a mess, the brain is no longer functioning, but man is more than the body and the brain.
That something more, that plus, immediately danced with joy. I am part of him, he is part of me. In his life he is part of me, if he goes he is part of me. Vimalkirti is blessed. He was one of those few of my chosen sannyasins who never wavered for a single moment, whose trust has been total the whole time he was here. He never asked a question, he never wrote a letter, he never brought any problem. His trust was such that he became by and by absolutely merged with me.
He has one of the rarest hearts; that quality of the heart has disappeared from the world. He is really a prince, really royal, really aristocratic! Aristocracy has nothing to do with birth, it has something to do with the quality of the heart. And I experienced him as one of the rarest, most beautiful souls on the earth….

The day he had the haemorrhage I was a little worried about him, hence I told my doctor sannyasins to help him remain in the body at least for seven days. He was doing so beautifully and so fine, and then just to end suddenly when the work was incomplete…He was just on the edge—a little push and he would become part of the beyond.
In fact, that's the reason why I want one of the most modern medical centres to be in the commune. If somebody is just on the verge and can be helped medically to remain in the body for a few more days, then he need not come back to life again. Many questions have come to me about what I think of living through artificial methods.
Now, he is breathing artificially. He would have died the same day—he almost did die. Without these artificial methods he would have already been in another body, he would have entered another womb. But then I will not be available here by the time he comes. Who knows whether he will be able to find a Master or not?—and a crazy Master like me! And once somebody has been so deeply connected with me, no other Master will do. They will look so flat, so dull, so dead! Hence I wanted him to hang around a little more.
Last night he managed: he crossed the boundary from doing to non-doing. That 'something' that was still in him dropped. Now he is ready, now we can say goodbye to him, now we can celebrate, now we can give him a send-off.

Give him an ecstatic bon voyage! Let him go with your dance, with your song! When I went to see him, this is what transpired between me and him. I waited by his side with closed eyes—he was immensely happy.
The body is not at all usable anymore…The surgeons, the neurosurgeons and the other doctors were worried; they were asking again and again, enquiring about what I was up to, why I wanted him to be in the body, because there seemed to be no point in it—even if he somehow managed to survive his brain would never be able to function rightly.
And I would not like him to be in that state. It is better that he goes.
And they were worried about why I wanted him to go on breathing artificially. Even his heart stopped once in a while and then, artificially, his heart had to be stimulated again. His kidneys began to fail yesterday, his skull has been drilled—there was such a great swelling inside. This was something congenital; it was bound to happen—it was a programme in his body.

But he managed beautifully: before it could happen he used this life for the ultimate flowering. Just a little bit had remained; last night even that disappeared…. …So today you will have to give a beautiful send-off to Vimalkirti. Give it with great laughter. Of course, I know you will miss him—even I will miss him. He has become such a part of the commune, so deeply involved with everybody.
I will miss him more than you because he was the guard in front of my door, and it was always a joy to come out of the room and see Vimalkirti standing there always smiling.
Now it will not be possible again. But he will be around here in your smiles, in your laughter. He will be here in the flowers, in the sun, in the wind, in the rain, because nothing is ever lost—nobody really dies, one becomes part of eternity.

So even though you will feel tears, let those tears be tears of joy—joy for what he has attained. Don't think of yourself, that you will be missing him, think of him, that he is fulfilled. And this is how you will learn, because sooner or later many more sannyasins will be going on the journey to the farther shore and you will have to learn to give them beautiful send-offs.
Sooner or later I will have to go, and this is how you will also learn to give me a send-off with laughter, dance, song.

My whole approach is of celebration. Religion to me is nothing but the whole spectrum of celebration, the whole rainbow, all the colours of celebration. Make it a great opportunity for yourself, because in celebrating his departure many of you can reach to greater heights, to new dimensions of being, it will be possible.
These are the moments which should not be missed; these are the moments which should be used to their fullest capacity. When Vimalkirti came to me and became a sannyasin I had no idea that he was the great-grandson of the German emperor—he never told me. He was a rare human being: being a part of the oldest royal family in Europe, he was just working as a guard in front of my house. You will be surprised—for years he was there, meditating, doing his work, but he never told anybody. When he died, only then did we become aware that he was the great-grandson of the German emperor….
When he came to me and I asked him, "Vimalkirti, what work would you like?" he said, "You simply say—anything." I loved the man from the very first moment I saw him. He had a certain quality.
So I said, "Okay, you be my guard, because you are so silent you will not create any disturbance. You just sit by my door."

And he said, "I will remain grateful forever, because I would have never thought I would be so fortunate as to be so close to you. You will be sleeping just inside the door, and I will be sitting outside. You will be working inside, and I will be sitting outside. Just this closeness is enough for me; I don't ask for more. You have given me everything."
You have to understand that in the world the program that says you have to do much to get anywhere is perfectly right. If you are after money, if you are after position, power, then you have to do much. But if you are just to realize yourself, you have not to do anything, because you have got it already. Just a relaxed moment, a peaceful moment when your mind is not wandering anywhere and just settles within itself—in that settling is liberation.

Vimalkirti was a rebellious spirit. He married out of love—Turiya, a commoner. The whole family was against it—not just his own family but many families in Europe, royal families, because it is against their tradition. And naturally, because they're all connected, Vimalkirti became almost an outcast.

If the empire had still been there, Vimalkirti would have been the emperor of Germany. His mother is the daughter of the Queen of Greece. She is also the sister of England's Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip.
She must have other sisters, other brothers, who have entered into other royal families. They were all against it, they tried hard to stop Vimalkirti from marrying Turiya. But he was a man of integrity and intelligence. He could not understand the superstition.
Nobody, no expert, if given few samples of blood can find out which is the royal blood. Blood is blood. And when Vimalkirti and Turiya came here, that was really outrageous—that the great-grandson of the German emperor, the oldest royal family in Europe, should become a sannyasin and be a bodyguard of a beggar like me who has nothing of his own.
They have been so furious that when the Queen of Greece died—and she had become the Queen Mother because she had so many children; almost all the royal families had become connected through her children—her last words were, "Somehow bring Vimalkirti, Turiya and their daughter back from that dangerous man."

But Vimalkirti died—and he died because this stupid idea of royal families marrying. Then you are really marrying your sisters, your brothers—they are all closely connected.
And the closer is the connection, the more dangerous; this is the finding of modern science, medicine, physiology, chemistry. Marriages should be between people who are as far away as possible; then children are healthier, more intelligent, more beautiful. Otherwise, certain diseases go round and round in twelve or fifteen families….
Still the mother, and later on the father who came, were angry at me. Their whole anger against Vimalkirti turned towards me. They were consulting legal experts about how they could sue me in the court for the death of their son. They had to stop that, because they would have given me a chance to prove to the whole world that this nonsense of royal marriages should be banned.

They stopped suing me because Vimalkirti had died from a disease that he had inherited. Just after a few days, his uncle died in the same way—suddenly fell unconscious, brain hemorrhage, and finished.
And later on, I came to know that their grandfather had also died in the same way. For no reason, no disease—just from nowhere the brain hemorrhage, and the man is gone. They stopped suing me, seeing the situation that I would bring into the court: Your father was not my sannyasin, Vimalkirti's uncle was not my sannyasin. Rather than suing me, take care of yourself because you will be dying in the same way, it is only a question of time. The disease is inherited.

Prince Charles is deeply interested in meditation. He is also interested in exploring the inner world. But in the West, unfortunately, such people are thought to be a little crazy—a little loony….
When he was in India, he had specially called Vimalkirti and his wife, Turiya—they both were my sannyasins. Vimalkirti was one of his cousins. Vimalkirti was the great-grandson of the German emperor, and he was directly connected to Prince Philip; Prince Philip was his mother's brother. He talked for hours about me, about meditation, about what is happening here.
Vimalkirti and Turiya both invited him to come; he was very interested, but very afraid of the royal family.
He was specially told by Queen Elizabeth not to go to Poona.
He went to see the shankaracharya, he went to see Mother Teresa, but Queen Elizabeth was more afraid of Poona than anything.

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