What is the relationship between enlightenment and knowledge?

Beloved Osho, socrates said, "all I know is that I know nothing." you say, "to know yourself is to know everything." I want to know what enlightenment has to do with knowing anything?

First, enlightenment has nothing to do with knowing anything. It is pure knowing; there is no object of that knowing. It is pure loving; there is no object as your beloved. It is pure rejoicing. Remember, enlightenment is a freedom from duality -- from the other, whatever the context may be. It is a clarity -- not that you are trying to know something, you are simply cleaning your glasses. You are trying to make your eyes perfect. You may know many things along the way, but that is never the goal. Socrates says, "I know only one thing, that I know nothing," but he knows at least one thing: that he knows nothing. His knowing is clear, absolutely clear. There is no object, but the clarity is there. I say, "To know oneself is to know everything." It is not different from what Socrates is saying, just a different…

The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. So nothing is attracting you -- YOU get attracted. Be alert and the bridge will be broken and you will regain balance inside. Go on doing it more and more. The more you do, the better. And a moment will come when you will not need to do it because the inner power will give you such a strength that the attraction of things will be lost. It is your weakness which is attracted. Be more powerful and nothing will attract you. Only then for the first time are you master of your own being. That will give you real freedom. No political freedom, no economic freedom, no social freedom, can be of much help. Not that they are not desirable, they are good, good in themselves, but they will not give you the things which the innermost core of your being is longing for --…

Osho, say something more about self-knowledge. That's my whole interest and inquiry.

But both are being half true. And remember: a half-truth is far worse than a total lie. At least the total lie has one quality about it: it is total -- the quality of totality. And one thing is beautiful about a total lie: it cannot deceive you long -- because it is such a lie, even the stupid person will be able to see sooner or later that it is a lie. But the half-truth is dangerous -- even an intelligent person can get lost into it. And then there is the third way: the way of the mystic. He accepts both, and rejects both. That is my way. He accepts both because he says, "On one plane both exist -- the knower and the known, the subject and the object, the inner and the outer. But on another plane, both disappear and only one remains -- which is…

Meditation is going inward. And the journey is endless, endless in the sense that the door opens and goes on opening until the door itself becomes the universe. Meditation flowers, and it goes on flowering until the flowering itself becomes the cosmos. The journey is endless: it begins, but it never ends. There are no degrees of enlightenment. Once it is, it is there. It is just like jumping into an ocean of feeling. You jump, you become one with it, like a drop dropping into the ocean becomes one with it. But that doesn't mean that you have known the whole ocean. The moment is total: the moment of dropping the ego - the moment of ego elimination, the moment of egolessness - is total; it is complete. As far as you are concerned, it is perfect.

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…