What are the signs of enlightenment and how should enlightened individuals behave in society?

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.

When one becomes empty of all thoughts, empty of all plannings, empty of all desires, what transformation will happen in one's outer life and one's inner life? How will he behave? How will he see things? How will he live in the world? Please say.

IT depends, it depends on the individual. There cannot be any dogmatic statement about it because each individual is so unique. When Basho becomes enlightened he starts singing poetry, poems; Buddha has never done that. When Krishna becomes enlightened he starts dancing, singing; Mahavir has never done that. When Mahavir becomes enlightened he keeps silence for many years, remains absolutely silent, not a ripple is allowed; Meera has not done that. When she becomes enlightened, she dances from village to village, she sings the glory of God. It is very difficult to make a dogmatic statement. There have been people who renounced life when they became enlightened and went to the Himalayas, moved as far away from the society as possible. There have been people who became enlightened and came back to the world, even if they had been in the Himalayas, and started living with people again. There have…

Beloved master, what are the characteristics of an enlightened being? What is the phenomenon of self-realization, god-realization and no-realization?

There are no outside characteristics of an enlightened man. People have been searching for them for centuries. If you go to a Jaina temple, you will see statues of the twenty-four tirthankaras. The most striking thing about them is that their earlobes are touching their shoulders. According to Jainism, a characteristic of an enlightened man is that his earlobes touch his shoulders -- a very strange kind of characteristic. Then Krishna is not enlightened, Jesus is not enlightened. And unless you try some plastic surgery, you cannot hope to be enlightened. But this is sheer nonsense, because what does the earlobe have to do with enlightenment? Have you seen Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira? -- all are clean-shaven. That is strange. All twenty-four tirthankaras are clean-shaven. They were far more Western than you are! Far ahead of their times! But the idea is that the hairs of their beard and their…

What constitutes the behaviour of an enlightened man?

An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no 'constitutes' in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character. Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He lives from moment to moment. He has no character to follow; he has no structure around him. A character is a structure, a character is an armour. An enlightened man has no character. Let me say he is characterless. But try to understand me -- because he has no structured consciousness. He HAS consciousness but the structure has been dropped. He's neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, neither this nor that. He simply is. All duality has disappeared. You cannot evaluate him; you cannot categorize him; you cannot put him into any pigeon-holes of your logic. He exists like…

A friend has asked: Measured against the supposed signs of the enlightened, the behavior of the ashram residents doesn’t seem proper in society. Why don’t you tell your disciples?

On the holy festival of Diwali, a renowned social organization decided to open a library in its hall. The next day the chairman phoned a big bookseller and said, “Please send complete, bound sets of Tulsidas, Kabir, Meera, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Goethe, etc.—and listen, also send some books worth reading.” Because those sets are not for reading; the “books worth reading” are something else. Those sets are for display—people arrange them in cupboards to show off. At a ration line, a thin man stood ahead of a fat man. A policeman observed that the thin man kept stepping out and then back into the line. The policeman said, “Sir, please stay in line and stop stepping out.” The thin man, in a plaintive voice: “Sahib, this fat man behind me keeps pushing me. When the push becomes unbearable, I step out. When I gather the strength to endure again, I step…