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Osho on Do all beings eventually find their way to enlightenment?

Do all beings eventually find their way to enlightenment?

You are not seeking enlightenment; you are discovering the enlightenment that is already within you, waiting for your recognition.

— Osho
According to Osho, he cannot say all beings will attain enlightenment—maybe, maybe not. His essential insight is that everyone is already enlightened; the only question is whether you recognize it. That recognition depends wholly on you: continue habitual unconsciousness and you may postpone it indefinitely; turn inward and awareness dawns—not as achievement, but as discovery.

You’re already the light; noticing it is up to you—keep sleepwalking and you miss it, wake up and you see it.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

This Very Body The Buddha · Discourse 3
1977-12-13 · Buddha Hall · English

Since your program began, what results have there been with your sannyasins? Has anyone become enlightened?

They are all enlightened people. I don't deal with unenlightened people at all. I have never come across any unenlightened person. Since I became enlightened I have been coming across enlightened people -- enlightened men, enlightened women, enlightened dogs and donkeys. Enlightened trees and rocks and stars. The whole existence EXISTS in enlightenment, that's its very rhythm. So what are you talking about? SINCE YOUR PROGRAM BEGAN...And this is not a program. It is a very very mad chaotic phenomenon, it is not a program. It is chaos. Orange chaos I call it. And you ask: WHAT RESULTS HAVE THERE BEEN WITH YOUR SANNYASINS? Hundred percent. Whoever comes to me is enlightened -- what more do you need? If they persist not to realize it, that is their joy. That is their freedom! This much freedom every enlightened person should have -- that if he wants to behave in an…
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Sat Chit Anand · Discourse 25
1987-12-04 · Chuang Tzu Auditorium · English

Beloved Osho, is it possible to become enlightened in a really easy and relaxed way, with not too much effort and lots of naps?

Gayano, you are asking me, a man who has never done anything. Just through relaxation ... without any effort and lots of naps! Mostly I am asleep. I just get up to talk to you in the morning, then I go back to sleep; then I get up again in the evening to talk to you and go back to sleep. My total hours of sleep must be eighteen. Six hours I am awake, two hours with you, one hour for my bath, for my food and the remainder I am in absolute samadhi. And I don't even dream -- so lazy! And you are asking me the question. This is my whole philosophy, that you should not make any effort, that you should relax and enlightenment comes. It comes when it finds you are really relaxed, no tension, no effort and immediately it showers on you like thousands of…
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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language · Discourse 10
1976-12-20 · Buddha Hall · English

Are you the only enlightened person in this ashram? If yes, is it impossible to enlighten or to be enlightened near an enlightened person?

SINCE I BECAME ENLIGHTENED I have never come across a person who is not enlightened. You see only that which you are. Before I became enlightened, the same was the case with me -- the whole world used to appear tremendously asleep, in darkness, in death, unenlightened, because you are reflected continuously everywhere. Every other person is just a mirror; you see yourself. So don't be worried about others; think about yourself. That should be your problem. Others are not your problems. Whether they are enlightened or not, how does it concern you? Why should you be worried about it? If somebody wants to remain unenlightened, it is absolutely his business to decide about it. If they want to play the game of being unenlightened, it's perfectly okay. If you have become fed up with the world, if you are fed up with your anguish and anxiety and you have…
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From The False To The Truth · Discourse 7
1985-07-04 · Rajneeshmandir · English

Beloved Osho, I can't conceive of you ever being unenlightened. Did you really become enlightened only thirty-two years ago?

Seven years, by and by, passed -- they must have looked to that man almost like seven centuries. And he was so happy when he went to the abbot and said, "Master, I have a complaint to make. In the room you have allotted me, there is no mattress. And for seven years I have been prohibited from speaking." The abbot said, "Okay, a mattress will be provided immediately. You go back." A mattress was provided. But the cell in which the monk was living was very small, and the door was very small, and the mattress was big. So while they were bringing the mattress in, the door fell out and the window's glass was broken. Somehow they forced that big mattress into the small room. For seven years the poor man again suffered -- from rain, wind, snow, because there was no door and the window was broken.…
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From Unconciousness To Consciousness · Discourse 21
1984-11-19 · Lao Tzu Grove · English

Beloved Osho, what is enlightenment? Have the experience and the idea of enlightenment evolved with time?

So nirvana is just like darkness. The light is put off and your reality is all there, with all its beauty, benediction, blessing. But there is no word in English to translate nirvana. Jainas use the word moksha. Moksha means absolute freedom, ultimate freedom, freedom from all fetters. And the biggest fetter is the ego. Other fetters are just parts of the ego: greed, lust, ambition, anger. All that is thought to be sin in other religions, in Jainism is thought only to be a fetter. But the root, the main root of the whole tree of your slavery, is the ego. So cut the main root and all other roots will die of their own accord. Don't bother to cut small roots, branches, leaves, because they will come again. Cut the main root and the whole tree will die. And when all your fetters fall, what remains? The unfettered…
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