Why don’t the enlightened ones take birth again after enlightenment?

Why don’t the enlightened ones take birth again after enlightenment?

There is no need anymore. Birth is not without cause; birth is schooling. Life is an examination, a school. You come here because something is needed. We send a child to school to read and write, to understand; once he has passed all the exams, we don’t send him again. He has come home. There is no more need to send him. The Divine is home—call it Truth, Nirvana, Moksha—this world is the school. We are sent here so that we may test and assay ourselves on the touchstone, in the heat of pleasure and pain; so that we may pass through all kinds of bitter and sweet experiences and attain dispassion. To lose everything, to wander everywhere, to slip into far-off darknesses, into dark ravines—go as far from Truth as possible—and then return through awakening. A child is quiet, innocent; a saint too is quiet, innocent. But the saint’s…

Osho, another question in the same vein. Can people like Buddha, Mahavira, and Christ bring about conception even after enlightenment? And why don’t they have intercourse again to give birth to a superior soul? And is conception only a possibility between two unenlightened persons?

But who inside that prison will understand? The inmates will say, “You’ve gone mad—come back home.” Home meaning your cell. And however much he speaks of moon, sun, flowers—they will understand nothing, for they have seen nothing but darkness and chains. It may be that, just as we are asking here today, those people also ask, “Can someone, after sitting on the prison wall, come back once to have a child? Or is it only those who have never climbed the wall who have children?” Our question is exactly like that. The world, the life, the Great Life that Buddha and Mahavira are seeing—we know nothing of it. We are shut inside this small prison of the body, carrying it around all our lives. We think this is the great life. So we think, “Bring more souls here—bring better souls.” Buddha and Mahavira are busy sending even the “bad” souls…

Beloved Osho, enlightenment seems to me always to be an end, a death, a kind of suicide where a comeback is never possible -- no more adventures, no lovers, no sunsets, no dramas, no candlelight dinners. What can be more beautiful than the senseless dramas and joys of all my searchings? How is it after death for an enlightened man? Is it not boring for the next ten thousand years? I feel simply a death-fear.

Enlightenment can be a very scary thing. It can create a great paranoia in you. And your question is significant, because millions of people in the world never think about enlightenment, and the reason may be this deep-rooted fear. They have known a certain kind of life and they think this is the only life possible -- that's where they go wrong. This is the lowest form of life that we are living. In fact, to call it life is not right, it is only birth. It is only a possibility. You can make a life out of it -- life has to be created. And the misunderstanding is so old ... and people don't want to drop it because it is so consoling to think that you are alive and you are enjoying everything and it is a beautiful drama. But you have been through this drama many times.…

Beloved Osho, isn't enlightenment another idea like heaven? Why should it be that once you are enlightened you are never born again? Life is so juicy and such a blast, it seems crazy to become enlightened and never come back again.

The well frog said, "I will give you some measurements." He jumped one-fourth of the well, and he said, "Is it that big? No?" Then he jumped half of the well and said, "Is your ocean that big? No?" He jumped the whole well from one corner to the other, and he said, "Is your ocean that big?" The ocean frog said, "Please forgive me, you don't understand at all. From your well, there is no way to measure the ocean." And the well frog said, "Just get out of here! You are insulting your host. This is all a lie! There is no such thing. It is just your idea, just to make me feel humiliated. This is not the right attitude, right etiquette! Just get out of this place immediately; otherwise I will kill you!" You cannot be angry with the well frog -- that was his only…

If a being is enlightened, how can he die?

He never dies because he is already dead. You die because you cling to life. Then life has to be taken away, then you have to die. An enlightened being never dies because he does not cling to life. He has voluntarily given it up; he is already dead. But it appears to you that he also dies like you. That is only appearance -- don't be deceived by the appearance. A Buddha dies, of course. A Mahavir dies. Baal Shem will die, Moses will die -- everybody will die. And they die just like you on the surface, but that is only the surface. Watch an ordinary man dying. He makes every effort not to die, he clings to life to the very last, he cries and weeps tears of anguish and fear and trembling. A horror surrounds him; he is terror-struck. And then watch an enlightened man dying;…