Why is enlightenment not universal among all individuals?

Why are only you enlightened and for example not me, or the pope, or the whole world?

Why are only you the journalist? why not me? why not the pope? why not Ronald Reagan? Do you think these are questions worth answering? That's why I have to see them. Idiots are all around. One thing I must say: there was another man who was enlightened who died just a few days ago, J. Krishnamurti. Without him I am feeling alone. The question of "Why?" you should ask yourself. Why are you miserable? Why are you sleeping when you have the capacity to be awake? Perhaps you are having a beautiful dream: perhaps you are making love to your neighbor's wife, and you don't want to be awakened. I simply decided that if sleep is going to be my existence, it is not for me, because it is almost close to death. Either I have to be awakened or dead, but I will not be in the limbo…

Osho, the famous psychologist A. H. Maslow has placed self-actualization at the last rung in the hierarchy of human needs. In your view, is enlightenment an essential need of human life, and have terms like religion and spirituality been unnecessarily attached to enlightenment? Please explain.

Hunger is a man’s first need, but van Gogh must have been receiving something that no one could see—some stream of savor must have been flowing. Otherwise why? What purpose? No prestige, no name, no money—hunger, pain, poverty—yet he goes on painting. When he began to paint, hunger vanished, the body vanished—he became bodiless. When all the paintings he had to create were done, he committed suicide. In the letter he left he wrote: “Now there is no meaning left in living.” This is most intriguing. He wrote: “What I had to paint, I have painted; what I had to hum, I have hummed; what I had to pour into colors, I have poured; what I had to say, I have said; what was hidden within me has been expressed; now there is no meaning in staying.” Those “meaningless” paintings were his very meaning. When that work was finished, he…

Are you the only enlightened person in this ashram? If yes, is it impossible to enlighten or to be enlightened near an enlightened person?

SINCE I BECAME ENLIGHTENED I have never come across a person who is not enlightened. You see only that which you are. Before I became enlightened, the same was the case with me -- the whole world used to appear tremendously asleep, in darkness, in death, unenlightened, because you are reflected continuously everywhere. Every other person is just a mirror; you see yourself. So don't be worried about others; think about yourself. That should be your problem. Others are not your problems. Whether they are enlightened or not, how does it concern you? Why should you be worried about it? If somebody wants to remain unenlightened, it is absolutely his business to decide about it. If they want to play the game of being unenlightened, it's perfectly okay. If you have become fed up with the world, if you are fed up with your anguish and anxiety and you have…

Beloved Osho, I heard you saying that enlightenment is the transcendence of mind -- conscious, unconscious, sub-conscious -- and that one dissolves into the ocean of life, into the universe, into nothingness. I also hear you talking about the individuality of human beings. How can the individuality of an enlightened person manifest itself if he is dissolved in the whole?

The ordinary, unconscious human being has no individuality; he has only a personality. Personality is that which is given by others to you -- by the parents, by the teachers, by the priest, by the society -- whatever they have said about you. And you have been desiring to be respectable, to be respected, so you have been doing things which are appreciated, and the society goes on rewarding you, respecting you more and more. This is their method of creating a personality. But personality is very thin, skin-deep. It is not your nature. The child is born without a personality, but he is born with a potential individuality. The potential individuality simply means his uniqueness from anybody else -- he is different. So first, remember that individuality is not personality. When you drop personality, you discover your individuality -- and only the individual can become enlightened. The false cannot…

Beloved Osho, what is enlightenment? Have the experience and the idea of enlightenment evolved with time?

So nirvana is just like darkness. The light is put off and your reality is all there, with all its beauty, benediction, blessing. But there is no word in English to translate nirvana. Jainas use the word moksha. Moksha means absolute freedom, ultimate freedom, freedom from all fetters. And the biggest fetter is the ego. Other fetters are just parts of the ego: greed, lust, ambition, anger. All that is thought to be sin in other religions, in Jainism is thought only to be a fetter. But the root, the main root of the whole tree of your slavery, is the ego. So cut the main root and all other roots will die of their own accord. Don't bother to cut small roots, branches, leaves, because they will come again. Cut the main root and the whole tree will die. And when all your fetters fall, what remains? The unfettered…