What happens when one achieves enlightenment?

Beloved Osho, enlightenment seems to me always to be an end, a death, a kind of suicide where a comeback is never possible -- no more adventures, no lovers, no sunsets, no dramas, no candlelight dinners. What can be more beautiful than the senseless dramas and joys of all my searchings? How is it after death for an enlightened man? Is it not boring for the next ten thousand years? I feel simply a death-fear.

Enlightenment can be a very scary thing. It can create a great paranoia in you. And your question is significant, because millions of people in the world never think about enlightenment, and the reason may be this deep-rooted fear. They have known a certain kind of life and they think this is the only life possible -- that's where they go wrong. This is the lowest form of life that we are living. In fact, to call it life is not right, it is only birth. It is only a possibility. You can make a life out of it -- life has to be created. And the misunderstanding is so old ... and people don't want to drop it because it is so consoling to think that you are alive and you are enjoying everything and it is a beautiful drama. But you have been through this drama many times.…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT? I am reminded.... Mulla Nasruddin had applied for a post on a ship. He was interviewed. The captain and the high officials of the ship were sitting in a room. Mulla entered. The captain asked, "If the seas are in a turmoil, winds are strong, waves are huge and mountainous, what are you going to do to save the ship? It is tossed from here to there...." Mulla Nasruddin said, "It is not much of a problem: I will just drop a huge anchor to keep the ship stable against the winds, against the waves. It is not much of a problem." The captain again said, "Suppose another mountainous wave comes and the ship is going to be drowned; what are you going to do?" He said, "Nothing -- another huge anchor.

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…

Osho, what is the most significant thing about enlightenment?

People want definite answers to believe in: this way or that. Either be a Catholic or be a communist, but be clear. People want clarity because they are so confused, and this man brings all these seven categories; now their confusion is worse, they are even more confounded. First you were at least aware that you were confused. Now you will not be aware to which category you belong: yes, no, yes -- no both, neither yes nor no, or indescribable. Mahavira could not create a world religion for the simple reason that perhaps he had the deepest penetration into reality. If you ask about his enlightenment, he will answer in seven sentences. You will not be able to come to any conclusion -- and I feel this is something tremendously valuable. Why this urge to come to a conclusion? If existence is a continuum, an ongoing process -- never…

What is enlightenment?

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away, you cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all. Maybe you have got lost in many, many dreams, that's all -- but you are there. God is your very being. So the first thing is: don't think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal, it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring…