Why do people perceive enlightenment as a joke?

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK ENLIGHTENMENT IS A JOKE? Sarito, it is! But only a child can ask such a beautiful question -- Sarito is only twelve years of age. Enlightenment is a joke because it is not something that you have to achieve, yet you have to make all possible efforts to achieve it. It is already the case: you are born enlightened. The word "enlightenment" is beautiful. We come from the source, the ultimate source of light. We are small rays of that sun, and howsoever far away we may have gone, our nature remains the same. Nobody can go against his real nature: you can forget about it, but you cannot lose it. Hence attaining it is not the right expression; it is not attained, it is only remembered. That's why Buddha called his method SAMMASATI.

Osho, I love you. I also love your jokes. I am very serious these days. This whole enlightenment game is too heavy. Please tell more jokes.

My own experience is that only an enlightened person can tell jokes. What else is left? He has seen the greatest joke of it all: he has seen the whole absurdity of searching for enlightenment. One finds enlightenment not by searching, but by one day coming to such a point of desperation that one drops all effort. In that very moment one becomes aware of it. When searching stops, desiring disappears, you are left alone with your being; nowhere to go, you are in. The inward journey is not really a journey. When all journeys disappear -- nowhere to go, no interest in going, you have searched in every direction and every direction has failed you -- in UTTER desperation you simply stop, you collapse, but that very collapse is the moment of the transformation. Nowhere-going, you are in. Not seeking anything, only the seeker is left. Not trying to…

Osho: has anyone ever become enlightened while listening to a joke? Maybe there is hope for me yet!

Listen to these jokes and give it a try. Who knows? Enlightenment is always unpredictable -- it may happen today. But don't expect it. These are the problems with enlightenment: if you expect, you miss. Such strange conditions are attached to enlightenment: if you expect you miss, if you desire you miss. So don't expect that it is going to happen; just sit relaxed and listen to the joke. It may happen, it may not. The marriage between the elderly farmer and his young wife was not working out too well, so the farmer consulted his doctor for advice. "The next time you are down in the field plowing and feel a yearning for your wife," said the doctor, "don't wait until lunchtime or the end of the day, but quit what you are doing and go to the house!" "I tried that," said the farmer, "but by the time…

Beloved Osho, sitting in front of us, what do you see? Do you find all these jokes while looking at us?

Svabhavo, you are right. I have to confess it: looking at you, what else can be found? You are all a joke unto yourself. Gautam Buddha said as his last statement: "Be a light unto yourself." The day I leave the body please remind me, so that I can make my last statement: "Be a joke unto yourself." That is far more joyful than being a light unto yourself. What are you going to do with a light? Light your cigars, or burn people's houses? But being a joke unto yourself, you will be a bliss for everyone. You are right... this is the way I find jokes -- looking at you. So be aware when I look at you; I am searching for a joke! A big old Indian was sitting in a bar out West when a dirty hippy came in and started to drink a lot and…

Osho, what was the first thing that you did after you became enlightened?

For two years I had lived with that family, and they had known that I would get up at three o'clock in the morning, then I would go for a long four- or five-mile walk or run, and then I would take a bath in the river. Everything was absolutely routine. Even if I had a fever or I was ill, there was no difference: I would simply go on the same way. They had known me to sit in meditation for hours. Up to that day I had not eaten many things. I would not drink tea, coffee, I had a strict discipline about what to eat, what not to eat. And exactly at nine o'clock I would go to bed. Even if somebody was sitting there, I would simply say "Goodbye" and I would go to my bed. The family with whom I used to live, they would…