It’s like trying to remember a name—you try first, then relax, and it pops up; the breakthrough is sudden, but the trying made it possible.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
A friend has asked, Osho, can a worldly person not attain God? Are home, family and woman the obstacles to attaining God? Is there no way for a householder to attain God?
Break this sleep. Running will do nothing. Remove this sleep. Let this mind be filled with awareness; let the dreams depart; let the waves of thought subside; let this mind become quiet and silent—then His touch will begin immediately. His flowers will start blooming, His fragrance will begin to waft, His song will be heard; His sun will just now cut through your darkness and you will be filled with light. Therefore in my view, the one who is running knows nothing. It may be that you have been hurt by the world and therefore you run. But the suffering of the world is also your own creation. So wherever you run, you will prepare new sources of suffering. If this is not visible on the surface, go and see. Look at people sitting in ashrams, at renunciates. If they have not awakened, you will find them entangled in a…
Question: First question: Osho, God-realization through grace—how does it happen? It happened to Buddha without any dance. And in the two and a half millennia since Buddha, how many have sat under trees with closed eyes—and it does not happen. Sitting with closed eyes beneath a tree does not make it happen. That was a coincidence. It can happen anywhere. It happened to Tuladhar, the merchant, as he sat at his shop—while weighing on the balance it happened. It happened to Janaka as he sat upon his throne. It happened to Krishna in the very midst of the world. It happened to Mahavira after he withdrew from the world, standing naked in mountain caves. But none of these is a cause. It is not like heating water to a hundred degrees and water turns to steam—there is no such mechanism.
Osho, what does realization feel like? How can a seeker know that something has truly happened? How can one distinguish reality from self-created imagination? How can others recognize the attainment of one who is realized?
You ask: “How can a seeker know that something has truly happened?” When you have a headache, how do you know you have a headache? When I was in school, I had a Muslim teacher—perhaps he is still alive—Rahamuddin, a lovely man, but very strict in one thing: it was almost impossible to get leave from him. He himself never took leave and would not grant it to students. I often needed leave. I would say my stomach hurts, or my head hurts. He said, “Listen, I accept fever; I do not accept stomachache or headache. If you have fever, I can at least take your hand and feel it. But how am I to know whether you truly have a stomachache or headache?” I said, “Since you ask, let me ask you—have you ever had a headache? A stomachache?” He said, “I have.” I said, “What proof can you…
Beloved Osho, are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as this upanishad seems to suggest, or does this happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly? Is it a matter of long conscious effort, or of a sudden total surrender to existence?
So this Upanishad is dividing, not because divisions are there, but because you will not be able to understand the whole. The whole will be too much, too complex. The whole will be incomprehensible, and understanding will not be possible. That's why the division into seven stages, and that's why there are so many divisions. You can divide in fourteen, you can divide in seventeen -- you can divide into as many as you like. And theologicians go on fighting about these divisions. They are workable, utilitarian -- not existential. Just feel your body, close your eyes and feel. Where are the divisions? It is one. But if your eyes are not functioning well you will go to the eye specialist. And you know that eyes are not separate, they are one with the body, so then why go to the eye specialist? You can go to any doctor. The…
Osho, I have heard that enlightenment, or the natural state of man, is something acausal -- it just happens. And all our endeavours to bring about awareness, to be aware, are actually taking us away from this state since they are all mind games, and these activities for self-awareness are just a "holy business". I cannot imagine what my life would be if I gave up the search since it has permeated my life as long as I can remember. If there is no way to integrate, nothing one can do, why all this activity? Why bother? Yet what else is there to do? Please comment.
It happens only to those who are not holding anything back, when you have put all that you have at stake, when nothing is left behind, when you are utterly empty, you have emptied yourself totally, and it is not happening, then the understanding arises, "My efforts are futile. My efforts are ego efforts -- the ego is futile. My efforts are my own mind games. The mind itself is the barrier." But this has to become your own experience, Samadhi. It is not going to help if you have heard it. You can hear great truths, but unless they arise in your own being they are not true. A heard truth is a lie: only an experienced truth is a truth. And only the experienced truth liberates. How will you experience it? You would like to have it without any efforts. You would like it to happen as it…