Osho.  2000.  Watkins Publishing.  262p.

The book collates the teachings of Osho, the Indian mystic who died in 1990.

Osho states “death is the last taboo” and deconstructs the way many of us deny it and/or believe “it is always the other one who dies, so why be bothered”.  His teachings are critical of unquestioning belief compared to doubt and the much harder search for truth; suggesting heaven and hell are psychological and lived by many now, rather than be geographical or a destiny.

Rather than ask, “is there life after death?”, the question should be, “is there life after birth?”; we often see “death as the enemy of death” which is “absurd as death cannot be avoided”, and with this approach, “the whole of life becomes your enemy.”

Indeed, “the fear of death is fear of time.  And the fear of time is, deeply down, fear of unlived moments, of an unlived life.”

The Art of Living and Dying presents down-to-earth and everyday reflections on how we consider death and many aspects of life around it.  Ultimately it is an unadorned spiritual guide, wherever your faith or feelings, on how to better approach ‘now’ in an insightful and joyous way.