What happens when I focus on helping others reach enlightenment instead of pursuing it for myself?

Osho, whatever you say appears so wholly true and fruitful that an intense urge arises to tell it all to others, to the whole world. As a result the mind inevitably starts gathering your words; it keeps thinking about how to convey them to others. At the same time, I also feel: until I myself have attained something, how can I say anything to others? So what should we do?

Rightly so. This is exactly what I was saying: let meditation and compassion grow together. If meditation is completed and you attain, but in the meantime you have not laid the foundation of compassion, you will be lost. The day your boat is ready, you will simply leave. So do not wait, thinking, “When I am complete, then I will speak.” Because then you will not be able to speak at all. While you are not yet complete, begin to sow the seeds of compassion. This continuous urge rising in you to tell others—this is the feeling of compassion. Because there is nothing to take from others, only to give. You want others to receive what is coming to you—this is a tender, love-soaked state. Do not take it as something wrong. Remember: only if you keep practicing speaking now, will you be able to utter a few words even…

If one has no desire for one's own enlightenment, but only for that of others -- does one have a problem?

The disciple thinks the Master has helped, the Master knows that he has done nothing. The disciple thinks much has been done to him -- and he is right also because much has happened to him, but his understanding is not clear because he thinks, How can something happen if it has not been done? That is the problem for the disciple. He thinks, The Master is doing so much for me. Because the disciple cannot understand how things can happen, such great things, without anybody doing them: I am not doing them so the Master must be doing them to me. The Master is also not doing. The disciple is opening himself to the Master and the Master is available, that's all. He is a catalytic agent -- his presence DOES. And the disciple feels tremendously grateful -- and his gratefulness has meaning because alone he could not achieve…

I certainly want to become enlightened. But if I do, what difference does it make for the rest of the world?

But why are you worried about the rest of the world? Let the world worry about itself. And you are not worried about what will happen to the rest of the world if you remain ignorant.... If you are ignorant, what happens to the rest of the world? You create misery. Not that you knowingly do it, you are misery -- so whatsoever you do, you sow seeds of misery all around. Your hopes are meaningless; your being is significant. You may think you are helping others -- you hinder them. You may think you love others -- you may be simply killing them and murdering them. You may think you are teaching others, but you may be simply helping them to remain ignorant forever -- because what you hope, what you think, what you wish, is not significant. What you are is significant. Every day I see people around…

Is not the search for enlightenment a selfish search?

You cannot be centred and you are trying to help others, to be of service to them. The only help that you can give, the first and the very basic thing, is to be centred and rooted within yourself. Yes, enlightenment is a selfish search. This is half of the answer I would like to give you.Now the other half. Because enlightenment is a selfish search, the most selfish, incomparably selfish -- that's why you cannot attain enlightenment through search. The search will make you a beautiful person, wise, compassionate, in a thousand and one ways, but not enlightened. So, for me there exist three types of persons; one, the so called religious person, the moral, the puritan, the so-called good, who goes on trying to be unselfish and remains selfish. Second, the person who knows there is no other way to be, that to be selfish is the only…

Osho, even after the attainment of the Great Nirvana, in what way do the enlightened and the masters, merged in the Whole, help us? Please make it clearer.

It is not right to say “they help.” Help happens. The doer does not remain. It is not right to say the river quenches your thirst; the river simply flows. If you cup your hands and drink, the thirst is quenched. If the river itself quenched thirst, you would not need to drink; the river would make the effort. But the river moves on, inactive. The river goes on being itself; you can stand on the bank for lifetimes and still remain thirsty. Bend down, fill your cupped hands, drink, and the thirst will be gone. The enlightened do not help you either before merging into the Whole or after merging into the Whole. Because only when the sense of “doership” disappears does knowledge arise. As long as the sense of doership is there, one is not enlightened but ignorant. I am not helping you, nor serving you. I cannot…