Can an enlightened being act mechanically without consciousness?

Anyone who gives up the transcendent for the mundane, in any of its myriad forms, is a mortal. A buddha is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad. Such is his power, karma can't hold him. No matter what kind of karma, a buddha transforms it. Heaven and hell are nothing to him. ...if you're not sure, don't act. Once you act, you wander through birth and death and regret having no refuge ..... To understand this mind, you have to act without acting. Only then will you see things from a tathagata's perspective.

BUT WHEN YOU FIRST EMBARK ON THE PATH, YOUR AWARENESS WON'T BE FOCUSED. YOU'RE LIKELY TO SEE ALL SORTS OF STRANGE, DREAMLIKE SCENES. BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DOUBT THAT ALL SUCH SCENES COME FROM YOUR OWN MIND AND NOWHERE ELSE. IF YOU SEE A LIGHT BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN, YOUR REMAINING ATTACHMENTS WILL SUDDENLY COME TO AN END, AND THE NATURE OF REALITY WILL BE REVEALED. SUCH AN OCCURRENCE SERVES AS THE BASIS FOR ENLIGHTENMENT. BUT THIS IS SOMETHING ONLY YOU KNOW. YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN IT TO OTHERS. ...OR IF, WHILE YOU'RE WALKING, STANDING, SITTING OR LYING IN THE STILLNESS AND DARKNESS OF NIGHT, EVERYTHING APPEARS AS THOUGH IN DAYLIGHT, DON'T BE STARTLED. IT'S YOUR OWN MIND ABOUT TO REVEAL ITSELF. ...IF YOU SEE YOUR NATURE, YOU DON'T NEED TO READ SUTRAS OR INVOKE BUDDHAS. ERUDITION AND KNOWLEDGE ARE NOT ONLY USELESS, THEY CLOUD YOUR AWARENESS. DOCTRINES ARE ONLY FOR POINTING…

What constitutes the behaviour of an enlightened man?

An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no 'constitutes' in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character. Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He lives from moment to moment. He has no character to follow; he has no structure around him. A character is a structure, a character is an armour. An enlightened man has no character. Let me say he is characterless. But try to understand me -- because he has no structured consciousness. He HAS consciousness but the structure has been dropped. He's neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, neither this nor that. He simply is. All duality has disappeared. You cannot evaluate him; you cannot categorize him; you cannot put him into any pigeon-holes of your logic. He exists like…

Can one live and function in the world in a state of enlightenment or no-mind? Is an enlightened person self-sufficient in the world?

In a single moment he was no more Jesus, he was Christ. In a single moment he was no more human, he was superhuman. The gap is very small. That's why Buddha says, 'Miss it by a single inch, or by a single moment and you are thrown millions of miles away.' Just a single inch was the difference between these two sentences -- there was not much gap, maybe a single breath. But he was just ordinary when he shouted against god -- human, weak. Just a moment later on he was reconciled; there was no problem then. If this is the way god wants it to happen, then this is the way it has to happen. He accepted. A smile must have come to his face, and not only to his face but to his heart also. In that moment he must have expanded. Now there was nothing…

Beloved master, in your golden future, will there be a troupe of enlightened actors? Is it possible for a man who is enlightened to be an actor?

When he himself died, after forty-two years of lingering on this shore keeping his boat waiting, the story is that he reached the doors of paradise. Those doors rarely open, only once in a while, in centuries -- visitors don't come every day. And whenever someone comes to those doors, the whole of paradise celebrates it; one more consciousness has attained to flowering, and existence is far more rich than it has ever been before. The doors were opened, and the other enlightened people who had entered into paradise before... because in Buddhism, there is no God, but only these enlightened people are godly, so there are as many gods as enlightened people. They had all gathered at the door with music, with song and with dance. They wanted to welcome Gautam Buddha, but to their amazement he was standing with his back towards the gate, and his face still…

Question: The last question: Osho, do enlightened ones also shed tears? Now you will say, “Can an enlightened one flee?” Krishna fled. “Can an enlightened one lie?” In Krishna’s life there are many lies. “Can an enlightened one break a given promise?” Krishna broke them. What will you do? “Can an enlightened one take a sword in hand?” Mohammed did. Although on the sword was written, “Peace is my message.” The meaning of Islam is peace. Now to write on the sword itself, “Peace is my message”—couldn’t you find any other place to write it? It is hard to say. On one side there is a Buddha who says even to kill an ant is sin. On the other side there is a Mohammed who, sword in hand, kept cutting down men—and did not worry at all. On one side there is Mahavira who even drinks water after straining it.