What is the significance of enlightenment as the last experience of the mind?

Beloved Osho, something you said struck me like a gong. You said -- or I heard -- that enlightenment is the last experience of the mind. Can you elaborate on this please?

It looks very contradictory to my other statements. I have said again and again that enlightenment is beyond mind. So naturally when you heard it, that I am saying enlightenment is the last experience of the mind, the contradiction was absolutely clear. But you have to understand something very subtle: experience as such needs a mind. What experience it is, does not matter, because experience means duality: the experiencer and the experienced. So what I have said before was just to help you drop the mind. My words are devices, not statements. What I said yesterday was actually the fact. It is the mind's last experience -- because for experience mind is needed. If there is no mind, there is no experience. You are, but you cannot talk about any experience of bliss, of ecstasy, of godliness, of nirvana. You cannot talk. And the problem for me is that unless…

Question: does transcendence come with the opening of the sahasrar?

No, transcendence is beyond the opening. But enlightenment has two connotations. One, the dying mind - the ending mind, the mind that is going to die, the mind that has come to its peak, the mind that has come to its last - conceives of the enlightenment. But a barrier has come and now the mind will not go beyond this. The mind knows that it is ending, and with its ending the mind also knows the end of suffering; the mind also knows the end of division; the mind also knows the end of the conflict that was there. All this ends and the mind conceives of this as enlightenment, but it is still the mind that is conceiving of it. So this is enlightenment conceived of by the mind. When the mind has gone, then the real enlightenment comes. Now you have transcended, but you cannot talk about…

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…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT? But in this whole changing, riverlike being... who are you? Only the stupid will speak out; the wise will remain silent. One who knows not will say, "I am this; I am a man, I am a woman, I am young, I am Hindu, I am a Christian..." Only the stupid will speak out. The wise will become absolutely silent. He is also answering -- his silence is the answer. Buddha calls this silence "right remembrance"... sammasati. You are saying, "I go on remembering all kinds of things you have said, and my own insights..." Agyeya, I had no idea that you also have insights! But... okay. Remembering all kinds of things that I have said, and what you have imagined as your intuitions... just try to find a single intuition that is yours, and you will be surprised.

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.