What is the difference between instant coffee and instant enlightenment?

Beloved Osho, the west conceived instant coffee. The east conceived instant enlightenment. What is the difference?

Milarepa, the West has created the instant coffee, but the West does not know how to sip it. Enlightenment is nothing but the right, meditative way of drinking coffee or tea. Enlightenment is to live gracefully, lovingly, moment-to-moment -- not only being blissful yourself but showering your bliss all around -- that is instant enlightenment. You can become enlightened this very moment. Because the East does not conceive anything more than this moment -- who knows about the next moment? It may come, it may not come. If you want really to do something -- coffee or enlightenment -- do it now, immediately. Instant coffee may take a little time, but instant enlightenment takes no time at all.

Beloved master, you say that enlightenment can happen any moment. To me it feels like a very slow process of learning and becoming aware of the unconscious parts of my being. Do you have something to say about this?

Enlightenment is not something like an achievement; one cannot achieve it. One has to disappear for it to happen. It is a happening and it happens only in the absence of the ego. And whenever you are doing something the ego becomes more and more strengthened. The ego is a doer, and enlightenment happens in a state of nondoing. It is simply the realization of who you are; it is not a question of achievement. You are already it! Just an awakening, just a turning in! Seeing the point, Buddha relaxed; he dropped all his methods. That is the only use of methods: you get tired of them, you feel utterly bored with them. One day out of sheer boredom you drop all the methods. That evening he dropped his whole spiritual search. He had dropped all worldly search six years before, but it is the same search whether you…

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 difference between surrender and blind imitation?

So be careful: the freedom you allow yourself, allow the other too. You have no right to judge another as blindly credulous or as a surrendered being. Drop that concern. You cannot judge anyway—how will you enter another’s heart? How will you know? Think only about yourself. See within whether, up to now, you have lived by blind belief or by surrender. Decide only there; leave worrying about others. Otherwise, all your judgments will be wrong. Jesus said: Judge not; do not set yourself up as a judge in relation to another. To the friend who has asked: if you are asking for yourself, good. Drop worrying about others. Look within and see: whatever I have been clinging to till now—have I ever staked my life to hold it? Have I meditated for it? Have I loved for it? Or am I just clutching what culture, society, civilization handed me?…

The ancients said:

"(SELF-)CULTIVATION TAKES AN UNIMAGINABLE TIME (WHILE) ENLIGHTENMENT IN AN INSTANT IS ATTAINED." IF THE TRAINING IS EFFICIENT, ENLIGHTENMENT WILL BE ATTAINED IN ONE FINGERSNAP. IN DAYS GONE BY CH'AN MASTER HUI CHUEH OF LANG YEH MOUNTAIN, HAD A DISCIPLE WHO CALLED ON HIM FOR INSTRUCTION. THE MASTER TAUGHT HER TO EXAMINE INTO THE SENTENCE: "TAKE NO NOTICE." SHE FOLLOWED HIS INSTRUCTION STRICTLY WITHOUT BACKSLIDING. ONE DAY HER HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE, BUT SHE SAID: "TAKE NO NOTICE." ANOTHER DAY, HER SON FELL INTO THE WATER AND WHEN A BYSTANDER CALLED HER, SHE SAID: "TAKE NO NOTICE." SHE OBSERVED EXACTLY HER MASTER'S INSTRUCTION BY LAYING DOWN ALL CASUAL THOUGHTS. ONE DAY, AS HER HUSBAND LIT THE FIRE TO MAKE FRITTERS OF TWISTED DOUGH, SHE THREW INTO THE PAN FULL OF BOILING (VEGETABLE) OIL A BATTER WHICH MADE A NOISE. UPON HEARING THE NOISE, SHE WAS INSTANTLY ENLIGHTENED. THEN SHE THREW THE PAN…