According to Osho, yes—there are always enlightened people in India, but most are unseen. Enlightenment expresses itself through a person’s existing capacities: a Meera sings and dances; a teacher teaches. Those without natural channels for expression may remain silent, their realization having no outlet. Hence only a few are visible while many quietly live in anonymity.
Yes, but many stay unnoticed because only those with a way to express it—like singing or teaching—show it outwardly.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Even now, are there many such people in India?
There always are. But what happens is this: if a woman like Meera were to attain enlightenment, she would sing, dance, and reveal it, because her mind has been trained in singing and dancing; her realization will naturally express itself through song and dance. If someone is a teacher, with a teacher’s mind, and he comes to realization, that knowing will flow as teachings. But if a person is not a teacher, not a dancer, not a poet, and he comes to realization, his knowing remains dammed up; there is no outlet for its flow. So many people remain silent.
If india is such an unspiritual country, why are so many enlightened beings born here?
Try to understand me: when I say a man is spiritual I mean he is as easily flowing on the outside as he flows inside. He is whole. Neither has the East been spiritual nor has the West been spiritual. The West has been materialist and the East has been spiritualist -- but not spiritual. The West believes in the philosophy of the outside, the East believes in the philosophy of the inside. The spiritual person is one who has come to that ultimate synthesis between the outer and the inner, between matter and consciousness, between body and soul. In the real spiritual person East and West meet and disappear. The really spiritual person is neither of the East nor of the West; he is global. Where he exists is not the point. His approach is global because his approach is total. He's whole, that's why I call him holy.…
Question: Third question: Osho, isn’t India a land of the enlightened? In old age Mulla Nasruddin’s eyesight weakened. When an elephant began to look like a mouse to him, he went to an eye specialist. The doctor examined him and put a pair of quite thick lenses on him. Mulla came out delighted. On the way home he passed through the market and thought, “I have received new light today; let me buy the children some toys to celebrate.” He walked into a grape seller’s shop and asked, “Brother, what do you charge for these balloons?” Sometimes when people “fix” their eyes, they over-fix them. Either an elephant looks like a mouse, or a mouse looks like an elephant. Hence the Buddha said: right vision—balanced sight. What does a person want? One thing: somehow to give the ego new ornaments, fresh adornment. So—“My country is great!” Why?
Beloved Osho, I loved hearing about your meetings with the old enlightened sand sculptor from bombay. Did you come across other enlightened individuals in your travels?
And if your watchfulness becomes really strong, then it may be music, it may be dance, it may be love -- it makes no difference: it simply cuts like a sharp sword between you and the object, whatever it is. Religious people are, perhaps, the farthest from watchfulness because they are trying prayer, they are trying devotion to God, they are trying to believe in God. They will be afraid of watching because watching will mean that God will simply disappear -- because it was only a belief, not a fact. The prayer will disappear because it was devoted to, addressed to a God who does not exist. The devotion will disappear because there is no one high above in the sky to be devoted to. Religious people are the most afraid of watchfulness. That's my experience. They do not want to meditate, they do not want to be alert,…
And then he renounced the world. Rather than becoming a wrestler, he became a meditator. And when he became enlightened, he dropped the cloths. He had only one cloth that he used to cover his body. And after his enlightenment, as he was coming down the hill, a beggar asked him something, because it is too cold and he has nothing. And Mahavira looked at himself, he has only one shawl, so he made two pieces out of one shawl and gave half to the beggar, and half he kept himself. It was not enough to cover the body now. And as he was just descending from the hill into the valley, a rose bush caught hold in its thorns, the one piece of the shawl. He looked back and he laughed, and he said, "This is too much.