If you chase enlightenment like a prize, it keeps running ahead; stop chasing, be here now, and it shows up by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, before I came to know you, I had never heard about enlightenment. But I was searching for something. Now, after four years of living in a commune, I feel further away from reaching somewhere than ever before. I'm just grateful to be here and to feel your friendship and compassion. Is enlightenment still the goal? Is there any goal at all?
This is a troublesome question. Enlightenment has never been the goal. Its very nature prohibits making it a goal. The goal is always in the future somewhere; and enlightenment is always now and here. Enlightenment is an experience in the present. But this is one of the troubles of the mind, that it makes goals out of everything. If you love the idea of enlightenment, then immediately the mechanism of the mind makes it a goal: you have to achieve it -- and that's where you go on the wrong path. Enlightenment is a by-product of the understanding that to live in the past is foolish, because it is simply memory. But millions of people are wasting their time in memories. Millions of others are living in the future. You cannot live in the future; it is making castles in the air. To understand that past and future are both…Read the full discourse →
Osho, I keep thinking of my life in terms of goal or destination, waiting to wake up some day and find myself enlightened, and I worry that others will reach before me. Today is a tension. Why is eternity so difficult to feel and remember? You keep reminding me but I keep forgetting and lose patience. Why am I such a food? And then I think 'so what?' and then I want to scream 'no more!' but go on.
But do you think a day will come when all your invest-ments and all your worries and all your acts are complete? Will there ever come a day when you are finished with the activities of your so-called life, and you can come and say, "Right now I am ready"? It will never come, because life is such a complexity. It never begins, it never ends. You are always in the middle. It is like reading a novel from the middle. The beginning part is missing and the end part is missing -- you know only the middle. That is the mystery of life! Try some time reading a novel from the middle and you will find that even an ordinary novel becomes very mysterious. Intrigued you will be, and many times you will be tempted to look back: "What is the beginning?" But resist the temptation, go on reading…Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →
To live in the great way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited; even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going.
OBEY THE NATURE OF THINGS (YOUR OWN NATURE), AND YOU WILL WALK FREELY AND UNDISTURBED. WHEN THOUGHT IS IN BONDAGE THE TRUTH IS HIDDEN, FOR EVERYTHING IS MURKY AND UNCLEAR, AND THE BURDENSOME PRACTICE OF JUDGING BRINGS ANNOYANCE AND WEARINESS. WHAT BENEFIT CAN BE DERIVED FROM DISTINCTIONS AND SEPARATIONS? IF YOU WISH TO MOVE IN THE ONE WAY DO NOT DISLIKE EVEN THE WORLD OF SENSES AND IDEAS. INDEED, TO ACCEPT THEM FULLY IS IDENTICAL WITH TRUE ENLIGHTENMENT. THE WISE MAN STRIVES TO NO GOALS BUT THE FOOLISH MAN FETTERS HIMSELF. THERE IS ONE DHARMA, TRUTH, LAW, NOT MANY; DISTINCTIONS ARISE FROM THE CLINGING NEEDS OF THE IGNORANT. TO SEEK MIND WITH THE DISCRIMINATING MIND IS THE GREATEST OF ALL MISTAKES. The human being is a miracle on this small planet -- very very small, tiny! The sun is sixty thousand times bigger than this earth, and this sun is…Read the full discourse →