Is there anything else left for me to achieve in my pursuit of enlightenment?

Osho: This knowing, in that knowing, you also know this: that this has been with you, and you were not knowing it. But nothing has been achieved. QUESTION: BUT YOU KNOW IT AFTERWARDS. Osho: You have simply awakened that which was asleep then that when you try to go through safe, secure, systematic methods, your mind is a mind which longs for serenity, safety, systems. All that you gain is a big ego. MAHARISHI: THE STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT INERTIA. IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT. GOD-REALIZATION, WHEN WE SAY YOU HAVE GOD-REALIZATION, IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE STATE WHERE YOU HAVE NOT ACHIEVED IT. ENLIGHTENMENT, THE VERY WORD ENLIGHTENMENT, MEANS "I WAS SO LONG IN IGNORANCE, AND NOW I AM IN LIGHT; SO THIS, IN THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF IGNORANCE, IS CALLED ENLIGHTENMENT.

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…

Beloved Osho, watching the mind, it seems to me there is an infinite ocean of thoughts. Meditation gives me more peace and grounding, but hearing you speak about enlightenment -- it seems to me far, far away. Can you give me some advice?

Dhyan Jashan, enlightenment is as far away as you are from yourself; hence the distance differs from individual to individual. You are certainly in a difficult position: first, you are a German, and nobody has ever heard of any German becoming enlightened. Only one of my German sannyasins used to become once in a while enlightened, and again he understood, "What am I doing? It is not for me," and he dropped the idea. That happened many times. Just now I have heard that he is washing dishes in a Zorba the Buddha restaurant. The person who told me about him had asked him, "What happened? You had become enlightened...." He said, "Forget all about it. Five times I became enlightened, and then I dropped the whole idea. I am feeling far happier washing dishes in the restaurant." What was happening was that whenever he would come here he would…

I have been here two years doing nothing to improve myself, just reading, eating, sleeping, drifting. Now I feel as empty and lost as the day I came. Is there any point in staying longer?

I HAVE BEEN HERE TWO YEARS DOING NOTHING. Doing nothing is not so easy. Sambuddha, doing nothing means allowing the whole to do thing, allowing Tao to happen. Doing nothing is the greatest thing in the world. If a man can do nothing then everything happens, then all is possible, because to do nothing means one becomes nothing, nobody, emptiness. And out of that emptiness arises all that is, all that is possible. all that is potential. Out of emptiness opens the lotus of being. NOW I FEEL AS EMPTY AND LOST AS THE DAY I CAME. You have been changing seats but, because you are deaf, you can go to the balcony, you can go to the front seat, you can go to the back and nothing will change. Yes, in two years or two hundred years or two hundred lives, nothing will change. Change comes only when you…

Beloved Osho, before meeting you and taking sannyas in 1980, I used to achieve whatsoever targets and goals I made. But since then I have been relaxing at the platform, waiting for the whistle of the incoming train. Relaxing and waiting has increased to such an extent that sometimes during your discourses the sound of my own snoring makes me get up, feeling as if the train has arrived -- but the train never arrives. Beloved master, what next?

Suraj Prakash, learn to snore totally. This is not right -- that your own snoring wakes you up. Be a real authentic snorer, so that it wakes up everybody but you. Snoring is an art. And as far as the platform is concerned, you are not on the platform. You are sleeping on the train. So no need to worry. The train is taking you; that's why you don't hear the whistles of incoming trains. Snore fully, sleep well; the train is going fast. This is one of the problems for those who in their life have been achievers -- whatever they wanted, they achieved; whatever the target, whatever the goal, they managed it. But enlightenment is not a goal. And God is not an achievement. God is your very reality. All that you need is to relax completely. That's why I am saying snore perfectly. This getting up again…