Was Francis of Assisi enlightened?

Your words about priests ring so true to me and are body blows to my ego. Yet my mind goes on asking: was the celibate monk, francis of assisi, not enlightened?

SAMUDRA, FRANCIS OF ASSISI WAS ENLIGHTENED -- not because he was a monk, but in spite of it. It is like a man taking part in a race carrying two rocks in his two hands and he arrives first -- not because of those two rocks that he has been carrying in his hands, but in spite of them. It is a miracle that St. Francis ever became enlightened. You need not carry those rocks. He must have been a rare man -- that even re-maining a Christian he became enlightened. The sixth question:

Question: OSHO, IS J. KRISHNAMURTI ENLIGHTENED? Not only cheap, they are selling it without taking anything from you. Not only that, they are rewarding you: if you purchase their truth they are going to reward you. The Christians will call you a saint, the Hindus will call you a mahatma, a sage. Without any effort, without paying anything you gain so much respectability. All that you have to do is to pretend, to be a hypocrite. The whole human society is pretending. What do you know about Christ's experience? Without having some taste of it, you are a Christian? If this is not hypocrisy, then what is hypocrisy? Knowing nothing about God, you believe in God. If this is not dishonesty.... Then what else can dishonesty be? You are not even honest towards God. An honest, sincere person will start from skepticism. He will enquire.

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…

And then he renounced the world. Rather than becoming a wrestler, he became a meditator. And when he became enlightened, he dropped the cloths. He had only one cloth that he used to cover his body. And after his enlightenment, as he was coming down the hill, a beggar asked him something, because it is too cold and he has nothing. And Mahavira looked at himself, he has only one shawl, so he made two pieces out of one shawl and gave half to the beggar, and half he kept himself. It was not enough to cover the body now. And as he was just descending from the hill into the valley, a rose bush caught hold in its thorns, the one piece of the shawl. He looked back and he laughed, and he said, "This is too much.

Those phony holy people you meet in the churches, in the mosque and in the temples are not holy at all. They have no idea of the whole. They are very egoistic. Of course they have very pious egos, holier-than-thou, but a pious ego is the most egoistic phenomenon in the world. It is the most poisonous, because it is so subtle. Enlightenment is a forgotten language, it has to be remembered. Sannyas is just the beginning of turning in, looking in. Following Christ does not mean following Jesus. When Jesus disappears Christ is born in him. When Gautam Siddhartha disappears Buddha is born in him. They are totally different phenomena, but people have got them mixed-up. They think that to follow Christ means to follow Jesus. Nobody can follow Jesus because nobody can be like Jesus; God never creates the same person again.