Is it possible to experience pure consciousness temporarily and then lose it?

Is it possible to be in a state of pure consciousness for a while and to fall out again?

No, it is not possible. But something like it happens: you have a glimpse of pure consciousness; you have not entered. It is just as if you look from hundreds of miles' distance towards the Himalayan peaks. You have not reached them, but you can look from a vast distance. You can look at the peaks; you can have a feeling. You can open a window and look at the moon far away, and the rays will touch you and you will be illumined, you will have a certain experience, but from this window-experience you will fall again and again. When pure consciousness is achieved -- not a glimpse from a distance, but you have entered into it -- then you cannot lose it again. Once achieved it is achieved forever. You cannot fall out of it. Why? Because the moment you enter it you disappear. Who can fall out…

Was the man in today's story (where a man had no memory) enlightened? Or had he a glimpse? Do we get it and forget it and get it and forget it and one day maybe not forget?

YES, the man had a glimpse. If he had really become established then there was no way to bring him back -- you cannot bring a Buddha back. He had only a glimpse. He was just entering the door and he was pulled back. If he had entered the temple then he would have been gone, gone forever. Many times a glimpse will come and will disappear. It is natural. If enlightenment suddenly came like lightning, like thunder, you would be crushed. You would not be able to receive it. It would be too much. You would go mad. Glimpses come and prepare you. More and more glimpses will come and by and by you will become acclimatised for a totally different world, a totally different dimension of being. Otherwise you would go mad. Sometimes it has happened that a man who was working alone without a Master and was…

Osho, I have had lots of exhilarating moments of what seemed to me to be real consciousness, but then as soon as I have felt conscious I begin to feel unconscious, and it seems more and more to me that being conscious is a state one has to just experience and not recognize. Have you anything to say on this?

THE STATE of real awareness is not exhilarating. It has no excitement in it, it is absolutely peaceful. It is neither hot nor cold. You live in a world of coldness, dullness, hence your mind is constantly seeking for something exciting, exhilarating, elevating. You live always in dark valleys so you hanker for peaks, sunlit peaks. That is your desire, but that is not the nature of consciousness itself. Consciousness is exactly in the middle. It is neither low nor high, it is neither a valley nor a peak, it is neither cold nor hot. Buddha has called it MAJJHIM NIKAYA -- the middle way. It is exactly in the middle, and it is in the middle that transcendence happens. It is neither positive nor negative, neither good nor bad, NETI NETI, neither this nor that. You have come to such a delicate point where everything is balanced. You are…

Question: OSHO, HOW DOES ONE EXPLORE THE HIGHER STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS? He throws a rock into the well and runs away. Certainly, the rock falling in the well makes a big noise, and all the people who are following him stop near the well -- they think that the man has jumped into the well. So now some arrangement has to be made: more light has to be brought, somebody has to go down and find out who this man is, whether he is alive or dead. Now their whole mind is diverted. He reaches his home, really angry, almost ready to kill the father. And the father is sound asleep, covered with his blanket... it was a cold night. He pulls off his blanket, and he says, "Is this the way to teach your own son?" He said, "Are you back? That's enough; you have learned the art.

Beloved Osho, when you said that if we don't achieve total consciousness in this life, we will have to start from the very beginning again, and go through the whole evolution of mankind one more time, I was very touched. Is it possible that we will totally lose these few glimpses of light, beauty, and consciousness that we've got through being sannyasins?

Antar Ashiko, it is a very complicated question. Whatever you achieve in this life will remain with you, but it has to be an achievement not just a glimpse. And there is a great difference between an achievement and a glimpse. You can see the Himalayan peaks from thousands of miles away -- it is a glimpse; but to reach those peaks will be an achievement. A glimpse helps you to move onward, towards achievement; but unless something becomes a crystallized experience in your life, it is going to be lost -- you will have to start from the very beginning. There will be a little difference, and that will be that in your unconscious a shadow of your past life, a faraway echo -- as if you have seen something -- will remain. And when you again get the glimpse you may feel that this is not new, I…