Enlightenment is a simple phenomenon

To where? Do you want to go to Timbuktu or to Tokyo? Where do you want to go? The way can be shown to you, but the real problem is that enlightenment happens when you stop going anywhere, neither to Timbuktu nor to Tokyo – when you stop going, when you are simply resting in your own being, not going anywhere, not even a ripple, no desire to reach, no desire to achieve.

You are full of desires: you want to achieve spirituality, you want to achieve enlightenment. Your name is G.D. Murthi; you simply want an O to be put between G and D. That’s what your whole desire is: how to become God Murthi. Just O is missing; you can write it yourself! There is no problem in it. Who can prevent you? Make it G-O-D.

But that O also represents zero, and if you can manage to be a zero, just a nothingness, you have arrived, you have found. There is no way leading to it; all ways are misleading. A way as such is going to mislead, because a way means you are going farther away from yourself – a way always takes you away. There is no way to come to yourself – you are already there! There is no need to come. Simply stop these fantasies of going somewhere, of becoming spiritual, of becoming religious, of attaining enlightenment, nirvana, samadhi – simply stop all this nonsense. Just rest within your being, at home, at ease, relaxed… and this very moment, now and here, you are enlightened!

Enlightenment is
a simple phenomenon:
just breathing,
resting, doing nothing,
and you are silent
and there is no mind.

You become enlightened every morning here, and again you forget. And I am not joking – this is so! I make you enlightened every day, but you again get into the mess, you again start raising dust around yourself. You become afraid: “What is happening? Have I become enlightened?” And that is the beginning of raising the dust and the cloud and the smoke: “Have I become enlightened? Now what to do? Where to go? And if my wife comes to know then she will create trouble. It is better before I reach home to forget all about it!” By the time you reach home you are again unenlightened. You enter the same way again, your tail between your legs, afraid, because if you are really enlightened you will reach home and roar like a lion! Today try it, and the whole neighborhood will know that you have become enlightened! Your wife of course will shout, “Shut up! Don’t become enlightened so quickly! Wait! Let your children grow, let them get married. And enlightenment is for old age when you become retired; this is not the time. Put a stop to it right now — enough is enough!”

Enlightenment is a simple phenomenon: just breathing, resting, doing nothing, and you are silent and there is no mind. Just right now… is there any mind?… All the minds have disappeared. Where are the monkeys?

But these so-called Indian mahatmas go on telling people, “Mind is a monkey.” And you listen and you start repeating like gramophone records, “Mind is a monkey.” And you go on worshipping the monkey god Hanuman to prove that of course the mahatmas are right. “If mind is not a monkey, why am I worshipping this monkey? I must be a monkey!” And then comes Charles Darwin who says that you are born of the monkeys, so not only is the mind a monkey, your body is a monkey too. And you don’t know what spirituality is, so all that is left… body is a monkey, mind is a monkey, so two monkeys and that’s enough to bring results!

Forget all about this spirituality and enlightenment. Relax in your ordinary life. Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, go to sleep when you are feeling sleepy, and wake up in the early morning when you are feeling that you have rested enough. Just live the ordinary life joyously, live moment-to-moment. Don’t hanker for something great, ultimate, far away. Don’t bother about the other world, the beyond – this world is more than one needs. This world is so beautiful, who cares about the other world?

People ask me, “What happens after death?” And I ask them, “First try to find out what is happening before death!” And they look at me as if I am joking. I am never joking, I am simply telling you the truth! But because you are not finished yet with your desires and longings, you don’t listen to the truth.

Two salesmen were standing together at a bar, a little distance away from a drunk who was having trouble propping himself up and balancing his drink. The men were chatting about their job when one of them noticed a very unpleasant smell.
“Hey, Joe,” he interrupted, “do you smell shit!”
The other salesman sniffed and nodded, fingers closing his nostrils. “I think it is coming from that old drunk over there,” he said.
The first salesman walked over to the drunk. “Excuse me,” he said, “there is a foul smell around here. Did you shit in your pants?”
The drunk looked up at him over his glass, bleary-eyed. “Yeth,” he slobbered, “whath abouth ith?”
Shocked, the young salesman replied, “Well, why don’t you go to the men’s room and wash yourself?”
The drunk looked up again, thought for a moment, and then said decisively, “Because I haven’t finished yet!”

That’s the trouble – you are not finished yet! Otherwise go to the men’s bathroom and wash yourself and be enlightened! Who is preventing you? Just a little washing is needed and the whole foul smell will disappear. You are born fragrant, you become foul. It is your great work – you can undo it!

Osho, Philosophia Ultima, Ch 2, Q 2 (excerpt)