WHAT CONSTITUTES THE BEHAVIOUR OF AN ENLIGHTENED MAN?
An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no 'constitutes' in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character.
Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He lives from moment to moment. He has no character to follow; he has no structure around him. A character is a structure, a character is an armour. An enlightened man has no character. Let me say he is characterless.
But try to understand me — because he has no structured consciousness. He HAS consciousness but the structure has been dropped. He's neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He is neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral, neither this nor that. He simply is. All duality has disappeared. You cannot evaluate him; you cannot categorize him; you cannot put him into any pigeon-holes of your logic. He exists like an emptiness — nothingness he is. And out of that nothing, every moment the miracle — that he goes on functioning without any armour around him, without any structure. He goes on flowing.
It is difficult for you to understand, because you cannot think how you would function without a structure. If you don't have any morality conditioned on you, how will you behave morally? — it seems difficult for you. It is just like saying to a blind man that we walk without groping. The blind man says, "I cannot believe you. How can one walk without groping? Groping is a must." The blind man has his stick; he goes on groping with his stick — "Where is the door?" — and if you say that we don't carry any sticks, he will laugh: "You must have gone mad, or you must be joking." And he will say to you, "Don't be funny. Don't try to be funny. Because if you don't grope with a stick, how can you walk?"
Our character is like the blind man's staff. We grope in darkness; we somehow manage to be good; we somehow manage to be moral. And inside, the immorality goes on and on, ready to explode any moment — a great turmoil within. And we go on managing somehow on the surface. That's what we call character.
A man who is enlightened — who has come to know who he is, who has faced himself — has no masks, has no character, has no rules to follow. There is no need, because each moment his consciousness is there, and out of his consciousness arises his act.
You act out of your conscience; he acts out of his consciousness. Conscience is given by the society; consciousness is your nature. You act 'good', because you have been told to act 'good'. Not that you are good. You ACT'good' because you know it pays to be good; you know honesty is the best policy. Just see: it is policy, it is politics. It is cunningness, because it pays. And if dishonesty pays — if dishonesty is the best policy — then you move to dishonesty.
That's how the hypocrite is born. He goes on pretending to be honest, and he goes on doing whatsoever pays. Sometimes honesty pays — then he is honest; sometimes dishonesty pays — more often dishonesty pays — then he goes on being dishonest. Whatsoever pays, whatsoever fulfils your greed….
A man who is enlightened lives out of his consciousness. He has no conscience. He has thrown out all that structure, that conditioned mind. Now he lives out of his purity, innocence. His act is here and now; your act is mind-manipulated. You do something, but either it comes from the past, because you have been conditioned to do it that way, or it comes from the future, because you have been told about awards in heaven and somewhere in the future. Either it comes out of fear, or it comes out of greed — it never comes out of your consciousness. The enlightened man lives out of his consciousness.
Let me say it in a different way: you react, he acts. Somebody insults you: immediately you react. There is no time gap. You become angry, you retaliate. If you insult a Buddha, there is a time gap. He does not react. He looks at you; he watches you; he observes you: "Why are you behaving in this way?"
And out of that observation he responds. It is not a reaction; it is not a push-button thing. Somebody insults you; he has pushed a button. You react; you go mad. You cannot push any button in a Buddha; he has no buttons. That's what I mean: he has no character around him. You cannot push any button. He has dropped the whole mechanism. You can be angry; you can insult him; but you cannot decide his reaction, because he has none.
OSHO
