Osho - What is Enlightenment? Is it Divine Revealation?

Question - Beloved Osho, What is Enlightenment? Is it Divine Revealation?

Osho - It is not divine revelation, it is divine realization. And the difference is big. Divine revelation means something objective, like God, is revealed to you. You see some God, but you are separate from him and he is separate from you.

I don't believe in a God who is separate from us, who is separate from existence. I don't believe in a God who is a creator; I believe in a God who is creativity. To say it in other words, I don't believe in a God as a person, I believe in godliness as a quality.

Osho on Enlightenment

So I say it is not divine revelation, but divine realization. You realize that you are God, and in realizing that you are God, you realize that everything is God -- that only God exists and nothing else exists. In the stones, in the trees, in the birds, in the people -- whether they know it or not -- the same principle, the same quality, is hidden at the very center of every being. Enlightenment is becoming so full of light that you can see your own center and realize your godliness.

It makes a lot of difference -- with God as separate, man is only a puppet. He can never be free, he will always remain a slave. How can you be free of the creator? He created you. And why did he create you at a certain moment? -- why not before?

There is eternity in the past -- and Christianity says God created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. It must have been January 1st -- obviously. But what had he been doing until then? Just sitting and doing nothing for the whole of eternity? And then suddenly he creates this world. Not a great idea either -- a mess.

I was going on a trip. I went to my tailor and I told him, "You have to make my robe within seven days. And this time, no tricks: seven days means seven days."
He said, "As you wish. But remember one thing: God created the world in six days, and you can have a look at the world. I can create your robe in seven days, but then don't ask me, `What have you done?' It will be a mess!" He was right.

In six days... and after six days God got tired and he rested, and he has been resting since then. Strange tiredness! And it seems to be whimsical to suddenly decide to create the world. But you cannot depend on such a whimsical God. Tomorrow he may decide it is enough: destroy it. What can you do? With a God who is a creator you are just in the hands of somebody else who can make or mar you. Then your freedom and your individuality are meaningless.

Nietzsche is right when he says, "God is dead, and now man is free." He is putting two things together; that's his insight: God is dead, and now man is free. With God alive, man cannot be free.

I don't say God is dead -- because he was never alive! God is not an object outside existence. He is not a creator, he is the innermost reality of existence. He is eternal; he has always been herenow, and he will always be herenow. The creation did not end in six days, it is still going on. It is an ongoing process. It is evolution.

But God has to be put inside it, not outside it. God outside, the world becomes dead and God becomes a dictator. God inside, in existence, makes the whole of life alive, everything vibrant -- and God is no longer a danger. So I will not say enlightenment is divine revelation, no. All those who have said they had a divine revelation have simply dreamed about it, have been hallucinating. It was an illusion and nothing else.

Enlightenment is the realization: "I am not just a mortal. I am not just material, I am divine. In my heart of hearts God is alive, and what is happening in me is happening in everyone else." The only difference between one whom we call enlightened and the others is that he knows; he has recognized his inner being, and the others are fast asleep. But there is no qualitative difference. Those who are asleep may be awake tomorrow.

And in this eternity does it matter whether you wake up today or you wake up tomorrow? It doesn't matter. You can wake up early in the morning, you can wake up late in the morning -- eternity is available. You are free to choose when to wake up. You are free to choose if you want to have a little more sleep. Then turn over, pull the blanket up and enjoy sleeping a little longer... because it is God who is enjoying it. Don't be worried. Why disturb God if he wants to sleep a little more? And sooner or later you will wake up. How long can you sleep?

Enlightenment is awakening from a deep sleep, coming to consciousness from a state of unconsciousness. It does not need any God outside. God outside is very dangerous. Its implications are ugly, because God outside means worshipping, praising him, praying to him, going to the mosque, going to the church, going to the synagogue. God outside will never allow you to enter within yourself: your eyes are focused outside -- and there is no God outside. You are looking into an empty sky.

The real juice of life is within you. This very moment you can turn within yourself, look into yourself. No worship is needed, no prayer is needed. All that is needed is a silent journey to your own being. I call it meditation -- a silent pilgrimage to your own being.

And the moment you find your center, you have found the center of the whole existence.
Archimedes, one of the great scientists, used to say, "If I can find the center of the world, I can revolutionize everything." But the poor man never found it; he looked in the wrong direction. If by chance in some life I meet him, I will say, "Archimedes, are you still looking outside for the center? The center is within you. And it is true: if you can find the center within you, you have found the center of the whole world, and you can revolutionize it."

That is the reason that all the governments of the world are against a single individual who has no weapons, who has no power. Strange! Sometimes I feel, have all these people gone insane, or what?

The European parliament has to decide whether to allow my airplane to land at any airport in Europe or not. Even my airplane landing... entering their country is not a question at all, just the airplane landing for refueling and they are afraid.

In London, my pilot said that his time was up; he could not fly any longer. He needed twelve hours rest by law, so he said, "You will have to stay overnight at the airport."

I said, "That's okay, there is no problem." But I did not have any idea that I am something like a nuclear missile! They wouldn't let me stay in the first-class lounge. My friends thought that perhaps they might create trouble: "It is your own jet plane; why should we allow you in the first-class lounge?" So they purchased first-class tickets for all my friends who were on the plane.

And that actually happened. First they said, "We cannot allow you because you are not traveling by commercial plane. Where are your first-class tickets?" We produced the first-class tickets, and we said, "Tomorrow morning we will be flying by commercial plane." The man disappeared. After a few minutes he reappeared, and he said, "You cannot enter the first-class lounge."

While he was gone he left his file on the table, and one of my friends looked inside the file. All the instructions from the government were there: even before I had come to the airport the decision had been taken by the government that I should not be allowed in the first-class lounge, that I am a dangerous person. But what can a dangerous person do in the middle of the night in a first-class lounge from where he cannot even enter into the city?

So I asked him, "What is the alternative?"
He said, "There is only one alternative: you can remain in jail for the night." And I had to remain in jail for the night! Perhaps it was -- it must be -- something unprecedented: without any crime, with the jet plane waiting, with tickets in my hands, I had to wait in jail for the night.

And then in the parliament there were questions about why I was not allowed in the lounge; and the only answer was, "The man is dangerous." And nobody bothers to ask, "What dangerous thing could he have done? Is he a terrorist? Is he carrying bombs? What danger was possible?"

I was arrested in Greece. I had not gone out of the house; for fifteen days I was only in the house. And the archbishop started creating a great movement in the government that if they didn't throw me out of the country he was going to set fire to my house. He was going to dynamite it, because "the man is dangerous -- he can destroy our morality, he can destroy our religion, he can destroy our tradition, he can destroy our church. He cannot be allowed here."

And in the twentieth century a government decides that a person who is just a tourist and who will be there only two weeks more... I had not left the house for two weeks, and for the other two weeks I was not going to leave the house; I was just resting there in a friend's house. They decided that I am dangerous.

And nobody even thinks that if a morality can be destroyed in fifteen days -- a morality which you have created in three thousand years -- what kind of morality is it? It is not worth having. What kind of church is it? For two thousand years you have been creating it, and a tourist can destroy it in two weeks. Strange! And just sitting in his house!
But it seems there is a conspiracy from government to government. They are sending messages to each government that wherever I am, I should not be allowed to stay.

And I am not a political man, I am absolutely apolitical. I have no interest in politics; that I leave to the mediocre people. My interest is in the evolution of human consciousness. But perhaps that is dangerous for them. Perhaps that is the danger that they are talking about, that if people become more alert, more conscious, then they are not going to support the politicians.

People have to remain retarded, stupid, idiots, so Ronald Reagan can remain president of America. Otherwise who is going to choose a third-rate cowboy play-actor to be the president of America? Can't you find anybody intelligent?

Source - Osho Book "The Path of the Mystic"

^Top Back to Enlightenment