What is the taste of enlightenment?

Beloved Osho, I cannot understand what an enlightenment is. Oh, my beautiful master, will you please say something about the taste of enlightenment?

Chetna, there are things in life which cannot be understood. They can be experienced, but they cannot be explained. To explain them is to explain them away. About such things, you have to go through a transformation. You are asking for information. Information can be given about objects; the whole of science is information. And the whole of religion is transformation -- the moment religion becomes information, it is dead. You are asking me to give some taste of enlightenment to you. Can't you see a simple fact? -- that tastes cannot be transferred; either you have them or you don't have them. Even ordinary tastes... the taste of a sweet fruit is unexplainable. You will have to taste it yourself. I can show you the way, where the fruit is available, where the ripe fruit is waiting for you, where the flowers have become tired, because they have been…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT? Milarepa, enlightenment is not an experience. Experience always divides the experiencer from itself. But enlightenment knows no duality; hence it is not an experience but simply experiencing. It may not be right language; in fact, it cannot be right language because the linguist will not understand what you mean by `experiencing'. One has to know it. But some effort can be made; some indications and hints can be given. When you are in love, is it an experience? Is it objective? Is it separate from you? Is it something that you can exhibit? Is it something for which you can give some evidence, proof, argument? No, love simply knows itself. It is self-evident. It needs no proof and no witnesses. It needs no evidence, no arguments, no philosophy. Enlightenment goes even deeper than the reaches of love.

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT DOES ENLIGHTENMENT FEEL LIKE? Prem Geetam, enlightenment is not a thought nor a feeling. In fact, enlightenment is not an experience at all. When all experiences have disappeared and the mirror of consciousness is left without any content, utterly empty; no object to see, to think about, to feel; when there is no content around you; the pure witness remains -- that is the state of enlightenment. It is difficult, almost impossible, to describe it. If you say it feels blissful, it gives a wrong meaning to it -- because bliss is something contrary to misery and enlightenment is not contrary to anything. It is not even silence, because silence has meaning only when there is sound; without the contrast of sound there is no experience of silence. And there is no sound, there is no noise.

Beloved master, I've read a translation of the indian aesthetician, abhinava gupta, in which he says the taste of rasa is the same as the taste of brahma. His meaning, if I understand correctly, is that the aesthetic experience is of the same order as the experience of god. Sometimes, especially with art and music, I find a spontaneous joy arising. Is this a small taste of what it's like to be egoless?

The great philosopher, Abhinava Gupta, knows exactly what rasa is. There is no exact word in English to translate the Sanskrit word `rasa'. In Western aesthetics, the concept has not been evolved at all. The only word that can give you a little hint is `juice'. Literally, rasa means juice. There are moments of aesthetic experience when you are drowned in a juice: you have a certain taste of spontaneous joy, a feeling of timelessness, a moment when your thoughts have stopped. It can happen seeing a painting, or a beautiful piece of sculpture, or listening to music, or seeing a great dancer, or dancing yourself. All these are aesthetic activities. You can be drowned into some juice which is not of this world. It happens spontaneously; you cannot manage it to happen. If you make an effort to make it happen then there is no possibility of its happening;…

Beloved master, I can relate to the taste of good german chocolate, but what about the taste of enlightenment?

In the middle of the night they took me through the back door into the jail. There was nobody else, they eliminated any kind of witness, but existence has its own ways.... And the U.S. Marshall who brought me insisted that I could not write my own name, I had to write the name of David Washington. I should be called David Washington while I am in the jail, and I have to respond to this name. I said, "I am not going to write anybody's name. You are forcing me to do something illegal and unconstitutional, for which you will suffer one day." He was also tired, in the middle of the night; half an hour we struggled. He said, "You are a strange person, I want to go home!" I said, "You can go to hell! But I am not going to write David Washington." Then he said,…