Does individuality remain after enlightenment?

You said enlightenment is individual, but does individuality remain after enlightenment?

No. Individuality does not remain after enlightenment, but enlightenment is individual. You will have to understand it. A river falls into the ocean. When it has fallen the river has disappeared -- there is no individuality of that river left, but only an individual river falls into the ocean. You fall into the ocean of enlightenment as an individual: you cannot take your wife with you or your friend with you -- there is no way. You go alone. Nobody can take anybody. How can you take anybody? When you meditate you meditate alone. The moment you close the eyes and you become silent, everybody has disappeared -- the wife, the friend, the children. The nearest are also no longer near; the closest are farthest now. In your deep silence, inner collectedness, you alone exist. This aloneness will fall into the ocean. So, enlightenment is individual. Of course after enlightenment…

Beloved Osho, I heard you saying that enlightenment is the transcendence of mind -- conscious, unconscious, sub-conscious -- and that one dissolves into the ocean of life, into the universe, into nothingness. I also hear you talking about the individuality of human beings. How can the individuality of an enlightened person manifest itself if he is dissolved in the whole?

The ordinary, unconscious human being has no individuality; he has only a personality. Personality is that which is given by others to you -- by the parents, by the teachers, by the priest, by the society -- whatever they have said about you. And you have been desiring to be respectable, to be respected, so you have been doing things which are appreciated, and the society goes on rewarding you, respecting you more and more. This is their method of creating a personality. But personality is very thin, skin-deep. It is not your nature. The child is born without a personality, but he is born with a potential individuality. The potential individuality simply means his uniqueness from anybody else -- he is different. So first, remember that individuality is not personality. When you drop personality, you discover your individuality -- and only the individual can become enlightened. The false cannot…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHEN I DIE, DOES MY INDIVIDUALITY REMAIN? Yes, your individuality remains, but your personality disappears -- and you have to understand the difference between the two. The personality is something that is given by the society, by the religion, by education, by your profession. You have got a certain personality. That will be gone because it is a social product. But you were born with an individuality of your own. With death, you will be taking your individuality with you. Everything else that you have earned on the way will be taken back; it does not belong to you. Your degrees, your prizes, your awards, your Nobel prizes, your prestige, your reputation -- everything will be dropped. That I call your personality. But you have an individuality -- innocent, just the way you were born... utterly clean, a tabula rasa, nothing written on you, no name, nameless.

Osho, you said last night that those who have become void, valley-like, do not react but they respond, and that the responses of these different enlightened ones will be different -- that the valley will reecho in its own unique and individual way. Now a question arises whether those who become absolutely void, nothingness, still have a personality and individuality. If so, then please explain how this becomes possible.

THIS is one of the paradoxes of spiritual life: the more one dissolves into the Divine, the more unique one becomes. The dissolution is not of the individuality but of the self. The dissolution is not of the uniqueness but of the ego. The more you are an ego, the more you are like others, because everyone is an egoist. The ego is the most ordinary thing in the world. Everyone is an egoist; even a newborn child is an egoist -- a perfect egoist. So it is not anyone's achievement; it is not extraordinary. Really, it can be said that to be just ordinary is the most extraordinary thing possible because no one feels just ordinary. So to feel oneself extraordinary is just the most ordinary thing. Everyone feels like that! So ego is not something unique. If you have an ego, it is not something unique. Really, egolessness…

If krishnamurti is enlightened he must see what you are saying himself, right? So why doesn't he just come here and find himself a chair and a case of cold sodas and lean back and forget all that?

Two hipsters were visiting a small Alaska town when they heard some rumbling in the distance. 'Hey, cat,' one hipster said to a native. 'What's that crazy noise?' 'That noise means an avalanche is starting,' said one of the locals. 'In the past we've had to leave here for safety's sake.' 'Man,' said the second hipster, 'I don't dig this. Let's beat it.' 'You can go if you want to,' screamed hipster number one, 'but I'm staying. I've got a feeling this town is really going to move tonight!' If you look into people you will find that in situations absolutely alike -- or even in one situation -- they react differently, they respond differently. So what to say about enlightened persons? They are like peaks, peaks of the Himalayas, absolutely alone, unique. Never compare two enlightened persons. If you understand well, never compare any two persons -- but at…