Can an enlightened person be wrong?

Osho, can an enlightened person be wrong? This refers to what you told us about j. Krishnamurti, who keeps on saying that one does not need a master, which is actually not right please comment.

And that's what has happened in India: people are living in maya, deeply in it, and still talking that "This is all maya." And this talk too is part of their dream; it does not destroy the dream. In fact it makes the dream more rooted in them, because now there is no need to get rid of it -- because it is a dream! So why get rid of it? It does not matter. In a subtle way all the religions have done this: they have talked from the highest peak to the people for whom that peak does not exist yet. The people are living in darkness, and you go on telling them that darkness has no existence. It is true -- darkness has no existence, it is only the absence of light -- but just by saying to people that darkness has no existence is not going…

Osho, you say, “As He wills, let us become mere instruments; whatever role in life we have been given, let us fulfill it.” But letting what happens happen—i.e., flowing along with the body, mind, and ego—gives rise to suffering. So should we keep applying the principle of instrumentality even in relation to the body, mind, and ego, and go on suffering? How do we solve the riddle between the principle of instrumentality and the continuous reality of suffering?

That supreme bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. It is neither like night nor like day. It is twilight. The sun has set, night has not yet come; the light remains—very gentle, sweet, non-aggressive—that is twilight. Morning has come, the sun is not yet risen, the night has gone—such is the twilight. One who abides in that twilight—that is what we call prayer. That is why Hindus call their prayer sandhya. Sandhya means one who has stopped in between the dualities, who has found the truce between the two. Between pleasure and pain, love and hate, victory and defeat, night and day, life and death—one who has found the pact and stands in that concord. Seek that interval of conjunction. Krishna says, it is simple to find. If you cease to be the doer, you will find it instantly. It is only through your doer-ship that you keep missing.…

Does an enlightened person always remain enlightened or can he become unenlightened also?

The question is from Deva Swarup Yogiraj. Even an unenlightened person remains enlightened. The only difference is that he does not know it. The enlightened person knows it, and there is no way to drop that which you have known. Enlightenment is your nature, it is not something that you can put on and put off. It is not something like a dress, that you can change. It is your very core, it is your being. Enlightenment is your being. If you don't know it you can go on behaving in an unenlightened way. The day you know it, then there is no way to behave in an unenlightened way. Once you have known, you have known. But an enlightened person can pretend. He can pretend that he is not enlightened -- that freedom is available. Gurdjieff used to do that very much -- to pretend that he is not…

How is it that people who are not enlightened can talk with such apparent inside knowledge and so convincingly about the whole business?

Precisely because of that. Not knowing, they don't hesitate; not knowing, they have nothing to say really, so they can go on spinning; not knowing, they can use language more perfectly. If you know, language is always a barrier; rather than a help it is a hindrance. When you know, you have to be constantly aware because whatsoever you are saying is not that which you know -- there is great distance between the two. Sometimes that which you say goes directly opposite to that which you know. A blind man can talk very easily about light, there is no problem. He has no experience to put into words. Words are empty, so he can go on throwing them out. Of course, he can talk only to another blind man -- no man with eyes will be deceived. People who are not enlightened can go on talking to people who…

Osho, Jains believe that apart from the Jin-shasan all other dispensations are false; therefore one should not go to any other path. Even when told about awakened and accomplished beings, they do not turn toward them. Is it impossible to bring them to the right path?

How will you live in Mahavira’s time? How will you walk with Mahavira? How will you dwell in his shade? That tree is no more. If under a blazing noon your head is dripping with sweat you seek the shade of a tree that is; you do not sit under the shade of a tree that once was. You would be mad to sit in the shade of a vanished tree—there is neither tree nor shade; you will burn in the sun. If you thirst, you go to a lake that exists now; you don’t go to a lake that once was, however beautiful the ancient texts say it was—that will not quench thirst. If you hunger, you seek fresh food now. What is true for hunger and thirst is also true for truth. Seek truth now. Go to a lake that is present now. The danger is: you may…