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Osho on What is the state of attainment?

What is the state of attainment?

The state of attainment is not another achievement, but the end of achieving; it is the silence of desirelessness where you rest in your own nature, whole and complete.

— Osho
According to Osho, the state of attainment is that after which nothing remains to be attained—complete inner fulfillment where all seeking stops. It is not another achievement but the end of achieving: desirelessness, silence, and effortless being. When nothing is lacking, striving falls away, and you rest in your own nature, whole, free, and complete.

It’s the final okay-ness where you don’t want anything more and can simply be.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

Osho, for the attainment of the supreme state, how helpful are ochre robes, a mala, and the Guru? And after attaining the supreme state, what need remains for them?

So, in the final phase the complication is not that the disciple wants to leave and the Guru wants to hold. The final complication is this: the Guru says, “Leave now,” and the disciple will not. A disciple means one who has loved so totally—how will he leave! There is great pain. He is even ready to let liberation lie where it is; only let him lie at the Guru’s feet—that is enough. At the Guru’s feet he has found so much that the thought does not even arise that liberation could give more; and even if it could, no true disciple can be so ungrateful as to agree to leave in an instant. In the beginning, it was hard for the Guru to hold the disciple’s hand because the disciple kept pulling away. Now it is this same gentleman who is pulling away. I, too, would like to hold…

The song ends:

THE SUPREME UNDERSTANDING TRANSCENDS ALL THIS AND THAT. THE SUPREME ACTION EMBRACES GREAT RESOURCEFULNESS WITHOUT ATTACHMENT. THE SUPREME ACCOMPLISHMENT IS TO REALIZE IMMANENCE WITHOUT HOPE. AT FIRST A YOGI FEELS HIS MIND IS TUMBLING LIKE A WATERFALL; IN MID-COURSE, LIKE THE GANGES, IT FLOWS ON SLOW AND GENTLE; IN THE END IT IS A GREAT VAST OCEAN WHERE THE LIGHTS OF SON AND MOTHER MERGE IN ONE. Zen masters -- Bodhidharma, Rinzai, Bokuju -- they have been pictured in the first state. That's why they are so ferocious. They look like roaring lions, they look like they will kill you. If you look at their eyes, their eyes are volcanoes, fire jumps at you; they are like shocks. They have been pictured in the first satori state for certain reasons, because Zen people know that the first is the problem; and if you know Bodhidharma in this state, when the…
Question: Fourth question: Osho, how did you attain this position? Krishnatirth! Is this a “position”? There goes Murari, off to become a hero! Do you take this to be a position? This is a process of dissolving—the culmination of the process of dissolving. Somerset Maugham replied, “I wish I had not written even a single letter. This thing has brought me nothing but sorrow. Whoever became acquainted with me ended as my enemy. My whole life has been a failure. But now it is far too late; I cannot change. It is too late. And I tell you again: when I was a small child, this saying hung beside my cradle—‘What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ But now it is too late, much too late; I will not be able to change.
Early Talks · Discourse 7Para 228 Pahalgam, Kashmir, India English
Osho: This knowing, in that knowing, you also know this: that this has been with you, and you were not knowing it. But nothing has been achieved. QUESTION: BUT YOU KNOW IT AFTERWARDS. Osho: You have simply awakened that which was asleep then that when you try to go through safe, secure, systematic methods, your mind is a mind which longs for serenity, safety, systems. All that you gain is a big ego. MAHARISHI: THE STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT INERTIA. IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT. GOD-REALIZATION, WHEN WE SAY YOU HAVE GOD-REALIZATION, IT IS AN ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE STATE WHERE YOU HAVE NOT ACHIEVED IT. ENLIGHTENMENT, THE VERY WORD ENLIGHTENMENT, MEANS "I WAS SO LONG IN IGNORANCE, AND NOW I AM IN LIGHT; SO THIS, IN THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF IGNORANCE, IS CALLED ENLIGHTENMENT.

Osho, is action without attachment a practice of sadhana, or is it the effortless flowering of attainment? Please clarify.

All the words man has are such that they say something, explain something—and also create some misunderstanding and confusion. Take, for example, a road that leads to the destination. The moment a man steps onto the road, in one sense he is connected with the destination, because the road is connected to it. If he has walked one step on the road, he has also, in a sense, come one step closer to the goal. But in another sense, where has he reached the destination? He is still only on the road; much remains to be walked. If the destination is a hundred steps away, even after walking ninety-nine steps he is still on the road, not yet at the goal. So sadhana and siddhi are like the road and the destination—and non-attachment (anasakti) is both. When you begin, it is sadhana; when it is complete, it is siddhi. At…