Meditation will not give you enlightenment, remember. No technique can ever give you enlightenment; enlightenment is not technical. Meditation can only prepare the ground. meditation can only open the door. Meditation can only do something negatively; the positive will come. Once you are ready, it always comes. Please don’t try to do anything. Just be.
Enlightenment is not something like an achievement; one cannot achieve it. One has to disappear for it to happen. It is a happening and it happens only in the absence of the ego. And whenever you are doing something the ego becomes more and more strengthened. The ego is a doer, and enlightenment happens in a state of nondoing. It is simply the realization of who you are; it is not a question of achievement. You are already it! Just an awakening, just a turning in!
Enlightenment does not mean any ambition. If it is an ambition, then again you will start fighting for it. Enlightenment simply means being in a state of let-go. Enlightenment simply means undoing what the society has done to you. What your parents have imposed upon you, throw it away; what the society has conditioned you to be, put it aside. Reassert your being. Love yourself and respect yourself, and try to be just yourself.
Enlightenment is not a desire, is not a goal, is not an ambition. It is a dropping of all goals, a dropping of all desires, a dropping of all ambitions. It is just being natural. That’s what is meant by flowing.
Enlightenment is possible, but it will be possible only when you are ready to lose yourself. That is the meaning of Jesus’ saying when he says, “If you lose, you will gain. If you don’t lose, you will lose.” In losing is the gain. In forgetting is the remembrance. In dissolving, you become crystallized.
In a single moment, in one stroke, you can become enlightened. It is not a gradual process, because enlightenment is not something that you have to invent. It is something that you have to discover. It is already there. It is not something that you have to manufacture. If you have to manufacture it, of course, it will take time; but it is already there. Close your eyes and see it there. Be silent and have a taste of it. Your very nature is what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something alien, outside you. It is not somewhere else in time and space. It is you, your very core.
The idea of enlightenment is to remain in the present moment. I call it meditation — not to go into the past, which is no more, not to go into the future, which is not yet — because if you go into past and future, you are going to miss the present moment, which is the only reality. Just be here, now. And if you are here and now, enlightenment comes of its own accord. It is not a goal that you have to reach. It is not somewhere far away, so that you have to travel a path to it. It comes to you, you never go to it. It is not your doing, it is a happening.
One enlightened being can share his enlightenment and many can become lighted. But his enlightenment is not diminished; on the contrary, it increases. The more he gives, the more he is. A moment comes when he gives himself totally. And that is the moment when he becomes a master. Then those who are ready to take, who are open, available, can take as much as they want.
It is not a certain sequence of causes that brings enlightenment. Your search, your intense longing, your readiness to do anything — altogether perhaps they create a certain aroma around you in which that great accident becomes possible.
Existence has allowed enlightenment in so many different ways to people, all that we can say is that certain qualities — not very particular methods, but certain qualities — when they come to meet within you, function not as a cause, but something happens because of their presence. This is what in science is called a catalytic agent. They function as a catalytic agent.
I can suggest only that you can create the catalytic situation, and then wait. And have patience; you cannot force enlightenment to happen. You can manage the catalytic atmosphere, that’s all that is within your hands — then wait. Be patient.
Existence is impartial. Whenever the time is ripe, you will suddenly be aflame. All the old will be burned and something new, absolutely new, that you could not have even thought about, dreamed about, will have happened. It is possible, but nobody can guarantee it. It is going to happen if you can manage the catalytic atmosphere and wait. One never knows: it may happen today, it may take the whole life — but it will happen. Just wait. Wait with deep trust in existence. But whenever it happens, it will come as a great surprise to you, because it is accidental.
After enlightenment, nobody is born again. It is impossible. There is no way to be back in the cage. Experiencing the expanse of the whole sky, experiencing all the stars moving within you, sunrises within you, sunsets within you – all that is, is contained within you. Who would like to enter a cage and destroy the beautiful experience of continuous expansion?
After enlightenment nobody is born again. After enlightenment, to keep oneself in the body becomes more and more difficult. The reason is very simple. Enlightenment is exactly what the word means, as if a lightning has fallen upon you. Your being and your body are no longer bridged. You are in the body but your connections with the body are destroyed. That lightning destroyed all connections with the body.
But nobody’s approval can make anything real. Even if the whole world denies your enlightenment you will still be enlightened, there will be no difference. Or vice versa: even if the whole world approves your enlightenment and you are not enlightened, all that approval is not going to make you enlightened.
My religion is nothing but the art of living, the art of loving. And if you can manage two things — total life, total love — the third thing, enlightenment, will come of its own accord. You have earned it. You need not seek it, you deserve it. It is a reward from existence to those people who have respected life, loved, lived, danced, enjoyed.
