Osho Quotes on Satori

Satori is samadhi and yet not samadhi. It is a glimpse, and a glimpse in the very ordinary of the extraordinary: samadhi happening in ordinary moments. A sudden thing also -- it is not gradual, you don't move in degrees. It is just like water coming to boiling point, to one hundred degrees -- and then the jump, and the water becomes vapor, merges into the sky, and you cannot trace where it has gone. Up to ninety-nine degrees it is boiling and boiling and boiling, but not evaporating. From the ninety-ninth degree it can fall back, it was only hot. But if it passes the hundredth degree, then there is a sudden jump.
Satori is a glimpse. Much has to be done after it is attained. In fact, the real work starts after the first satori, first glimpse, because then you have tasted of the infinite. Now a real authentic search starts. Before it, it was just so-so, lukewarm, because you were not really confident, certain, what you are doing, where you are going, what is happening.
That's what Zen calls satori... utter relaxation of your being; a state of your consciousness where there is no becoming left; when you are not an achiever any more; when you are not going anywhere; when there is no goal; when all goals have disappeared and all purposes have been left behind; when you are, simply are. In that moment of isness you dissolve into totality and a new tick arises that has never been there. That tick is called satori, samadhi, enlightenment.
It can happen in any situation -- whenever you fall in tune with the whole.
That oneness is samadhi -- and that is the difference between satori and samadhi. Satori is getting in harmony within yourself, that is the first step; samadhi is getting in harmony with the total, that is the last step. In satori your conflict disappears; in SAMADHI you also disappear.
Samadhi means that you are no more an individual. Satori gives you great individuation. Now listen to it.... Before satori you are a person, not an individual. 'Person' comes from a root which means persona, a mask. Before satori you are just a person, a personality, but not an individuality.
Satori is only a glimpse of samadhi -- a faraway glimpse. For example, you can see the Himalayan peaks from hundreds of miles away, but to see the peak when sitting on it, is a totally different experience. Satori is only a faraway vision of samadhi; a glimpse, beautiful in itself but not equivalent to samadhi.
Ordinarily, when you are a person, you are in tremendous unrest. Restlessness is what you are. When you come to satori you have become very, very restful. You are and you are rested, deeply rested. In samadhi you have disappeared, there is only rest, nobody resting... eternal rest.
One day it happens that your witness has become so perfect that the screen remains empty, nothing passes -- no thought, no desire. That day you have attained to the first state of samadhi, the first satori. And the first satori is the beginning; it triggers many satoris in you, culminating ultimately into samadhi, into nirvana.
When satori happens or when drilling stops and mind functions no more you may feel for a single moment that you have gone mad, but in fact there is now no possibility of going mad because only a mind can go mad. Now that the mind is no more you cannot go mad. For a moment the idea of madness may come to you -- because you have lived with the mind so long and suddenly it has stopped. You will be in an emptiness. That emptiness is very, very scary. It is like death. You are disappearing, losing identity. It is very paralysing -- for a single moment.
Once you drop all preoccupations, a great emptiness arises in you. That great emptiness is what meditation is all about. That great emptiness, where no thought flickers, where you are purely available to whatsoever is the case, is satori, is samadhi.
Whenever the gestalt changes you attain a glimpse. That glimpse is satori. It is not final, you will lose it again. You will not become a buddha by satori; that's why I say it is a samadhi and yet not a samadhi. It is an ocean in a teacup. Ocean, yes, and yet not the ocean -- samadhi in a capsule. It gives you a glimpse, an opening... as if you are moving in a dark night, in a forest, lost; you don't know where you are moving, where the path is, whether you are moving in the right direction or not -- and then suddenly there is lightning. In a moment you see everything! Then the light disappears. You cannot read in lightning, because it lasts only a moment. You cannot sit under the sky and start reading in lightning. No, it is not a constant flow.

Samadhi is such that you can read in its light. Satori is like lightning -- you can see a glimpse of the whole, all that is there, and then it disappears. But you will not be the same again. It is not final enlightenment, but a great step towards it. Now you know. You have had a glimpse, now you can search for more of it. You have tasted it, now buddhas will become meaningful. Now if Zengen meets Dogo again he will not hit him, he will fall at his feet and ask for his forgiveness. Now he will weep millions of tears, because now he will say, 'What compassion Dogo had, that he allowed me to hit him; that he said, "Okay, you go ahead. Beat away!"' If he meets Dogo again, Zengen will not be the same. He has now tasted something which has changed him. He has not attained the final thing -- the final thing will be coming -- but he has got the sample.

Satori is the sample of Patanjali's samadhi. And it is beautiful that the sample is possible, because unless you taste it how can you move towards it? Unless you smell it a little, how can you be attracted and pulled towards it? The glimpse will become a magnetic force. You will never be the same again. You will know something is there and 'whether I find it or not -- that is up to me.' But trust will arise. Satori gives trust and starts a movement, a vital movement in you, towards the final enlightenment that is samadhi.
People feel very puzzled as to how satori is attained so fast. It is attained so fast because you are already in it. It is not something to be achieved in time, with effort; no effort is needed. It is as if a man has fallen asleep and he has forgotten his name -- as you all forget in your sleep. Then somebody comes and shouts, "Ram! What are you doing here? Get up -- the sun has risen!" He opens his eyes, and he is Ram again. And just a moment before, he was under a thousand and one dreams -- floating, moving, going in a thousand directions, dreaming impossible things. And suddenly a shout, "Ram! Get up -- the sun has risen!" and Ram opens his eyes. Exactly like that is satori.
Sometimes it has happened that a man has come very close to satori, very close, and then he went astray because of the greed. So watch. Eating, watch. In the morning, you know that the sleep is over, but you still want to turn over and have a little nap. Now it is greed. If your body is fresh and you are feeling good and the tiredness is gone, then watch. It is everywhere. Eating, sleeping, meditating -- it is everywhere.
Ramkrishna attained to his first SAMADHI, to his first satori, by seeing a row of cranes against the black clouds. He was very young, must have been thirteen. He was sitting by the lake of his town, it was cloudy, dark clouds were gathering, the beginning of the rain, and suddenly a row, many white cranes against the black clouds. Almost like lighting they were there and they were gone, and he attained to his first SAMADHI. For days he was drunk with the unknown, he danced, sang. His town's people, his family thought he had gone mad. But he was so happy.

That sudden experience. Something penetrated like a sword. Something was cut. Sometimes it happens to you too. You don't take account of these moments, because you are afraid. You try to forget them. And they are so extraordinary and they are so exceptional and so rare that even to talk about them, nobody will believe it. So you don't take account of them; you think, "Must be a fantasy, an imagination." But one day in the morning suddenly the world is beautiful -- for no reason at all. The reason IS there: the reason is you are more aware. Maybe you rested well in the night, it was a good sleep, the dreams were not too many, your stomach was not too full of food or hungry. Things somehow went well, and in the morning you felt on the top of the world. It is nothing but awareness.
With a friend you have not seen for many years, suddenly you become more aware. Anything that makes you more aware, watch it, take account of it, remember it, so that you can go more and more into it. Don't put it aside. Don't neglect it. It has to be fed and watered, taken care of.