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CHAPTER 23
Enlightenment without bargaining
11 April 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE BEEN YOUR SANNYASIN FOR ONE YEAR. I MEDITATE, WATCH, AND DO WHATEVER LOOKS TRUE TO ME; STILL A BIG PAIN ARISES.
BELOVED OSHO, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO GET ENLIGHTENED, AND DOES THIS ENLIGHTENMENT REALLY EXIST?
Yoganand, existence is not a goal; you don’t have to cover a certain mileage. Existence is not there, it is always here. Existence cannot be described as that, but only as this. The moment you ask how long it will take, you are bringing many complications into it.
First, there is no technique that can bring enlightenment – and “how” means technique. And when you say, “How long...” you are bringing time in also.
Existence knows nothing of time. It is always present.
It has never been past and it will never be future.
The moment you touch the reality of the present, the rose within your being opens its petals. You can call it anything – enlightenment, realization, being. But one thing is certain – it is never be-coming.
You cannot become enlightened. Either you are or you are not.
Between the two, the distance is infinite. It is impossible to bridge that distance.
Those who have become enlightened have not achieved it, because it is not an achievement. They have not invented it, because it has nothing to do with imagination, with mind. They have never found it, because in the first place you have never lost it.
You are enlightened this very moment.
By asking the question, “How long will it take to get enlightenment?” you are postponing enlightenment. I am saying you are enlightened this very moment and you say, “This very moment? But I have a girlfriend, and we have just met. And I am finding so many problems which have to be solved: the rented bicycle is stolen...”
What happened? – ask Vimal – to his Gandhi cap, Nehru shirt and pajama without any name? And he had never before been seen in this dress. This dress certainly belongs to the man whose rented bicycle is stolen. A woman has stolen it, his money, and everything, and that was the day when Vimal was acting like a woman. Exactly on that day, that great experience happened to the poor fellow. Since then he is avoiding women.
But by avoiding women, you are not going to find your lost money and the rented bicycle. It is better, rather than bothering about enlightenment, to get a really horrible girlfriend. And within minutes you will start becoming enlightened! Thousands of methodologies have been given to people; I give you the simplest: just find a horrible woman.
And it is not difficult because every woman, once you have found her, is horrible. They are great actors. When they are far away, they look so nice that you feel like postponing enlightenment. What is the hurry? But let the girl come close, and find yourself encaged, your money gone, your bicycle gone, even your shirt... and that fellow has not appeared again. How can he appear? The rented bicycle is not there, the money is not there, he is sitting in a bamboo hut, naked, enlightened!
Do you want to be enlightened? Just find his bamboo hut. Just give your clothes and money and your rented bicycle to him and tell him, “You can find some woman, let me be enlightened now. You have been long enough enlightened, almost three days.”
Yoganand, enlightenment is not a desire – and you have to understand the difference between desire and longing. You desire money, you desire position, you desire power, you desire a thousand and one things. But when you feel thirsty, the thirst is not a desire; it is a longing which is coming from every cell of your being. Lost in a desert...
A question was asked by a sannyasin to Alexander the Great... because Alexander declared himself to the sannyasin, “I am Alexander the Great.”
The sannyasin was standing naked by the side of a river. He started laughing. He said, “I have never seen such a stupid man as you are, calling yourself ‘the Great’. Only those who are not great
think, imagine, desire, proclaim their greatness. But those who are really great don’t even know that they are great. Greatness is in innocence. And what have you come to me for?”
Alexander was shaken. He was not shaken by great armies; even mountains would not have prevented him from doing anything. But this naked man had such a strong being, such an aura and presence. And the way he told him, “You are stupid and you are still suffering from inferiority; hence you call yourself Alexander the Great. Just Alexander will do. But what is your purpose?”
Alexander said, “My teacher, Aristotle, in Greece, has asked me that when I come back from India, I should bring along a sannyasin.”
The old sannyasin laughed again. He said to him, “Just tell your so-called teacher that the sannyasin has nothing except himself – and your teacher himself also has that being. There is no need to bring it, to import it from somewhere. Just tell him to be silent and desireless, peaceful, looking inwards, and he will find me.”
Alexander could not understand the language. In fact, Aristotle was not a mystic. He was a logician, a great philosopher, but he never thought about the miraculous, about that which is irrational but exists – the mysterious, the unknown, but it is all around.
It is without you and it is within you.
And the first thing is to experience it within yourself, because that is the closest point. To say it in other words, Yoganand:
You are enlightenment if you don’t desire anything – enlightenment included. If you are simply silent and desireless – no longing, no future, just this very moment is enough unto itself – the rose opens up its petals.
But instead of looking into yourself, you are looking far away somewhere, maybe in Jerusalem or maybe in Kashi or maybe in Tibet... somewhere enlightenment must be existing. How long will it take to reach there?
You are already there, where you want to reach.
This is my whole teaching – that you are already that which you want to be. You have never been other than that.
It is an impossibility to be other than that which you are. Enlightenment is only a realization of the fact, an awakening and seeing the truth of one’s being, its beauty, its immortality. Thousands are the flowers that blossom in your being. Great is the music that goes on in your deepest silences of the heart.
You may be sitting unmoving but existence goes on dancing within your heart. In every beat you can hear, you can feel – it is you. Nothing more can be said about it.
You don’t have to go anywhere and you don’t have to do anything. Those are all strategies to keep you away from yourself. But rather than looking into yourself you are asking, “And does this enlightenment really exist?”
Desiring one year, meditating, watching, a great pain arises in you that “One year has passed and I have been doing so much and enlightenment has not arrived yet. Not even a knock on the door, not even some information about when Your Honor will be coming.” Naturally, a suspicion arises: “Am I sane? or just waiting for something which does not exist at all?”
Existence does not exist apart from you; hence you cannot find it. If you want to be enlightened, be enlightened.
One day, I decided to be enlightened. Since then I have tried many times not to be enlightened; it does not work that way. So just to alert you: if you decide to be enlightened and you realize this very moment as your enlightenment, its silence, its beauty... then remember you cannot fall back! There is no way, no reverse gear. You cannot say, “Now for a few days I am going for a holiday.”
Enlightenment knows no holiday.
I have tried hard. Not even in sleep will it leave me.
But who wants to leave it? Who wants to be other than enlightened?
Don’t use big words, because they are deceptive. Enlightenment, moksha, salvation, self- realization... all great words which make you feel that your hands are very small; their reach is not that big. And enlightenment seems to be such a faraway a star, you cannot hope... Perhaps some Gautam Buddha – and that too “perhaps” because who knows whether he was enlightened or just started telling people “I am enlightened.”
Just like me. How do you know I am enlightened? Except that I started one day saying, “I am enlightened.” And since that day not even a doubt has arisen in me: just think it over, are you really enlightened? I have never looked at the fact again.
And whenever you ask, I feel sad because I cannot do anything to make you enlightened. Except to shout in your ears that, “You are it! This is it!”
It is a reality not away from you, not separate from you, it is in your heartbeats, in your breaths, in your consciousness, in your very being. Once you drop big words, which scriptures and philosophers have invented, and become simple and humble and look inside yourself, it is here. It is in your laughter, it is in your songs, it is in your dances. Nobody can give it to you and nobody can take it away from you. And there is no way to find it because you have not lost it.
I have never agreed with Jesus Christ on the point. He says, “Seek and ye shall find it.” I disagree categorically, absolutely. I say, “Do not seek; otherwise you will never find it. Seek not and find.” Seeking keeps you away from finding it. It is in the seeker itself. So where are you going to seek?
Jesus says, “Ask and it shall be given to you.” Who is there to give it to you? And if it were something like a matter of begging a god who goes on hiding behind the clouds or somewhere in the stars like a thief... that’s what all the religions are doing, praying. It is not a question of asking.
Do not ask.
Just be silent and you are it.
You are the answer. The answer is not going to come from anywhere else.
Jesus says, “Knock and the door shall be opened.” And I say unto you: The doors have always been open. There is no point in knocking on an open door, and if you can knock, that means you are knocking on some wall. The door is open.
I say unto you: The door is open, come in. Enter in. The existence is welcoming; there is no barrier. The whole existence is willing to be your host.
Yoganand, because you are enlightened anyway... whether you accept it or not, that does not matter; I accept you as enlightened. Even with your girlfriend you can be, because I don’t see that enlightenment can be disturbed by a girlfriend or by a rented bicycle or by your stupid-looking pajamas. Enlightenment has nothing to do with these things – that your bicycle is punctured. Do you think your enlightenment is also punctured?
“Good morning!” says Mendel Kravitz as he comes into Goldberg and Finkelstein’s tailors’ shop. “I came to this store because I don’t like to bargain.”
“Well, you have come to the right place,” says Hymie Goldberg. “Right,” agrees Moishe, “We are strictly a one-price outfit.”
“Excellent,” says Mendel, “I like that checked suit in the window. How much will it cost?”
“Like we said,” says Moishe the Fink, “we don’t fool around with bargaining. So we are not going to ask you three hundred dollars for this suit, or even two-fifty.”
“Right,” agrees Hymie, “we’ll give you our best price: two hundred and thirty dollars.”
“Well,” says Mendel, “you guys are my kind of businessmen, and that’s exactly why I am here. I won’t fool about and offer you one-fifty for that suit, or even one-seventy-five. I will come right out and offer you two hundred dollars.”
“The suit is yours,” says Hymie, “for two hundred ten.” “Okay,” says Mendel, “I will take it.”
There are people who don’t know what they are doing. Both are denying that they are bargainers and both are bargaining, and still both believe that bargaining is not happening! Such sleep is the only barrier, if you can call it a barrier. It is very thin. People don’t see it, that they go on doing it and still they deny it. And they will not see that their denial is absurd. Why are you seeking enlightenment, Yoganand, when I say you are enlightened? Just agree! What is the point of bargaining?
You have come to the right place. Where else can you get enlightenment without bargaining? Just be a little intelligent.
Luigi takes his pregnant wife to the hospital where she gives birth to twins. During the delivery, Luigi faints, so according to family tradition his brother Alfredo is called to name the children.
“My brother named the kids?” cries Luigi, when he recovers, “but my brother is such an idiot! What did he call the girl?”
“He named the girl Denise,” replies the nurse.
“Denise, eh?” says Luigi surprised. “Well, that is not such a bad name. In fact I quite like it. So what did he call the boy?”
“The boy,” sniffs his wife, “he called da’ nephew!”
Such great intelligence goes on all around the world. And all these people have the same capacity and the same potential as anyone else, but they never use it. In fact, they never believe that they have it.
You have to be again and again reminded, sometimes forcibly: “Accept that you are enlightened!” Unless a loaded gun is put on your nose, you will not accept it. When you see the gun you will say, “Yes, I am enlightened, I have always been enlightened. What is new in it? Just keep that gun away.” I have always been thinking of purchasing a gun, so whenever people like Yoganand come I can just put the gun on their nose... because fortunately I have many long-nosed people. And they will wake up only when they see: “My god it is not a camera, it is a gun! And behind is not Niskriya. Behind is the most dangerous fellow upon the earth! It is better to accept whatever he says.”
An advertisement appears in the paper one morning, asking for an individual who can type, take dictation, program a computer, and speak more than one language.
The first applicant for the job is a dog. The dog is able to type a hundred and forty words per minute and takes perfect dictation. Not only can she program a computer, but she has written several programming manuals.
The boss has the dog demonstrate all these skills and then says, “I am really amazed by your qualifications. So I only have one final question: What about the language requirement?”
The dog looks at him and says, “Yaa-Hoo!”
Just these two words are enough to fulfill the requirement of knowing two languages. Yoganand, are you still unenlightened? Just at least raise your hand and say, “Yaa-Hoo!”
(NOT EVEN A HEARTBEAT OF HESITATION, YOGANAND COMPLIES. OSHO JOINS IN THE LAUGHTER...)
That’s a great evening! At least one of you has become enlightened, although he became enlightened under the gun. But it doesn’t matter; people have become enlightened in different conditions.
Mrs. Zabriski walks into her son’s bedroom, turns on the light and shakes him roughly. “Come on,” she says, “you have got to get up and go to school.”
“But Mom,” whines the son, “I don’t wanna go to school.” “It is eight o’clock,” says Mrs. Zabriski, “You gotta go!”
“But, Mom, I hate school,” he says, “the kids don’t like me, the janitor does not like me, even the teachers don’t like me.”
“You gotta go,” insists Mrs. Zabriski, “you are forty years old and you are the headmaster.”
Somebody has to remind you who you are: forty years old and the headmaster. Now, Yoganand will be welcomed by everybody, wherever he goes. At least he cannot ask the question again, “What is enlightenment?” I am so happy to get rid of one person.
Farmer Jones and his wife Betty take their three pigs over to a neighboring farm to get them mated. While the pigs are at it, Jones asks his neighbor, “How will we know if the mating is a success?” Jones is told that if in a few days the pigs are eating grass, it means it is a success. If they are rolling around in the mud, it means it is not a success.
After a few days Jones comes down to breakfast and asks Betty, “Are they eating grass or rolling around in the mud?”
“They are rolling around in the mud,” replies Betty.
So they put the three pigs back in the car and take them back to the other farm to get them mated again. After a couple of days Jones asks Betty again. “What are they doing?” “They are rolling around in the mud,” replies Betty.
Jones is very angry and says, “My god! I have got lots of work to do today, but let’s get them in the car and take them back again.”
So three days go by and Jones comes down to breakfast and asks, “Betty, are they rolling in the mud or eating grass?”
“Neither,” replies Betty, “they are in the car, honking the horn!”
So I hope Yoganand will show at least this much intelligence. What is the point of rolling in the mud again and again? The real thing is to honk the horn and go! Even the pigs have understood the trick.
For two minutes, just be absolutely silent, unmoving. Only while you are unmoving can you experience the innermost center. So gather energy. Don’t waste it even in a slight movement, no change of posture. Now relax...
Okay, come back. Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Osho.
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