Enlightenment is a rediscovery

Beloved Master,
You are the only hope. Please give me a push.

Almost everybody needs a push, because almost everybody is just on the border.

Enlightenment is not far away; you are not to go miles in search of it. All that you need is to open your eyes and just see clearly where you are, because in that very place and in that very moment you are already enlightened.

Enlightenment is not something that you can make a goal of, it is your reality. It is really foolish to search for it, because the one who is searching for it, is himself the enlightenment. It is not an achievement, it is a discovery or to be more correct, it is a rediscovery. You knew it at a time when society had not corrupted your mind, when you were still so small that you were incorruptible, so innocent that the society was not capable of teaching you anything to condition your mind. It is the layer upon layer of conditionings that is hiding your light.

You don’t have to go anywhere.

You just have to put aside all the conditionings; but it is very difficult. It is difficult because you think those conditionings are tremendously important. […]

Not only do you need a push, everybody needs a push, and really a hard push. Unless you are shocked and awakened from your deep sleep, from your unconscious acceptance and identity with others’ ideas, you will never become an individual; you will never come to know your own light, you will never come to know your own innocence and the flowers that blossom in your innocence.

You have to get rid of all your knowledge; you have to get rid of all your so-called religions. You have to be as innocent as a small child. You are born just as human beings, not as Mohammedans, not as Hindus, not as Christians. All these are prisons in which you have been put from your very beginning, so you have completely forgotten that they are prisons. They appear to be cozy homes; they are not.

It needs tremendous courage to drop out from these prisons. But I think every man, every woman has the courage. Just an invitation is needed, and an encouragement is needed. And a support from a commune, from friends is needed so that you are not alone; there are other people also on the same path in the same rebellion.

Remember one thing. If you really want to be alive, contemporary, fresh, and you want to have a future not full of darkness and death but full of eternity and blissfulness, then you will have to take a little risk. A risk of dropping all kinds of borrowed knowledge, all that has been given to you by others, so that you can find what is your own.

I am reminded of one great mathematician, P.D. Ouspensky. He was world-famous when he met Gurdjieff, his master. Gurdjieff was not known outside of a small circle of seekers. He was made famous, world-famous, because of Ouspensky. But the day Ouspensky arrived to meet Gurdjieff, he had already written a very important book.

Perhaps there are only three books which can be said to be really important.

One is written by Aristotle. The name of the book is Organum. It means the first principle of wisdom. The second book is written by Bacon, who is the father of all modern science. His book’s name is Novum Organum, new principle of wisdom. Aristotle is thought to be the father of Western logic, mathematics and related sciences, and Bacon is certainly the most important figure who has created the whole of science, the whole technology that has made the West strong, rich, affluent, healthy.

And the third important book is Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum, the third principle of wisdom. This seems to be the most important of the three. And the first thing Ouspensky had written inside the book, not out of any egoism but out of sheer truthfulness, “Before the two Organums existed, Tertium Organum, my book, had already existed, because it is more fundamental than those two, Aristotle’s and Bacon’s books.”

It is certainly one of the most well-written books I have come across, and I have seen more books than perhaps any living human being.

When Ouspensky reached Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff was nobody and Ouspensky was a world-famous mathematician. Gurdjieff gave Ouspensky an empty paper and a pencil and told him, “Go into the other room” – no other introduction – “and first write down on one side what you know on the fundamental questions of life, and on the other side write what you do not know – because this will be decisive. Whatever you know I will never discuss with you. You know it, there is no need. Whatever you do not know I will teach you.”

There were at least twenty disciples sitting in that dark room, doing nothing, just silently sitting. Ouspensky had not expected such an introduction. The man who brought him had been resisting for almost nine months saying, “Unless the master says `yes,’ I cannot introduce you.” And after nine months of waiting he was brought into his presence, and this was the behavior that he got.

He said, “It is strange,” but he went into the other room – there was nothing else to do. And for the first time in his life he started thinking, Do I know it, do I know anything about God? – and I have been writing about God. Do I know anything about the human soul? – and I have been writing about it. Do I know anything about consciousness? – and I have been writing about it.

He could not write a single word on the side where he was supposed to write what he already knew. He came back after half an hour and returned the paper empty. And he said, “Forgive me, I tried hard. But really I don’t know anything. You will have to teach me from ABC.”

This is the way to drop your conditionings. This is the way to realize your ignorance. What your ignorance is finally turns out to be your innocence. It looks like a death when everything that you know and that you have been attached to is taken away. But on the other side it is a resurrection.

So if you really want to wake up and if you also want to become part of the great hope for humanity and the future of man, then die to the past, so that you can be reborn to the future. Less than that will not do; more than that is not needed.

Osho, The Invitation, Ch 30, Q 2