How easy is it to become enlightened?

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…

Beloved Osho, you must be the only enlightened man in this world of almost five billion people.

, PLEASE BE STRAIGHT WITH ME: HOW EASY IS IT TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED? Milarepa, it is very difficult for me to be straight. I am not a straight guy. Enlightenment is very close, but it all depends on you whether you allow it to happen or you keep yourself closed. I know the night is very dark, and in the darkest part of night to believe that the morning is very close is very difficult. But that's how it is: when the night is darkest, the dawn is closest. But the sun can rise and you can still keep your doors closed, you can keep your eyes closed. And the sun is a gentleman; it will not knock on your doors -- "Open! It is morning." It will come up to your door and wait. The question is very relative. Enlightenment can happen any moment if you are really bent…

Beloved Osho, your enlightenment was hard effort, but when you express your experience, it feels so easy -- just here, on the tip of the nose. But when I look at myself it feels easy and near impossible, simultaneously. Please comment.

Enlightenment is both -- the easiest thing in the world, and the most impossible thing. Before enlightenment it looks like the most impossible thing, obviously, because you don't have any idea, and you cannot have any idea; you can have only the experience. You are afraid too, because everybody is afraid of the unknown, the strange -- and there is not a more strange phenomenon than enlightenment. And effort to become conscious is needed; great effort is needed. You are so fast asleep and snoring that there is every possibility -- many camels dream in their sleep that they have become enlightened! That is the greatest trick your unconscious can play on you. I know a German sannyasin who used to become enlightened once in a while. Whenever he was in Germany he would become enlightened, and he would start writing letters to me, "I have become enlightened, and I…

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…

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…