How Enlightenment happened?

My name is Nanda. Could you talk about how you got enlightened, how it happened to you?

Okay. This is a question… The preparation for me was very important. I was with Osho for a long time, since '79, and I fell immediately in love with meditation. I trusted it the most, immediately I trusted it because there is no analyzing, nobody is interfering, all is needed is close your eyes and enjoy mind in rest. So much can be seen, not really seen but known, and that joy of sitting in quiet. In that silence everything is known, just mind does not really know what I know but there is a knowing in that quiet, a trust. Safe, absolutely safe. And I was so much in love with that situation, that was my greatest love affair I ever had, and it became my only love affair, this situation, so in love with that. I did not want to open my eyes ever again… so beautiful. But when you open your eyes, in love with that, you will naturally more and more allow this mind to be in the passive, and the joy is there even if eyes are open. There is the clarity, when mind is in rest. In that silence everything is known… just mind does not really know what I know.Meditation is the greatest device, it is the shortcut, if you are truly in love with meditation, if it is not something you have to do. For example, dynamic meditation, all these active meditations, Osho devices, they are beautiful in the beginning, but what is truly meant with these active meditations is that you come to a point when you can just simply sit there. This is when meditation starts. Once you fall in love with that, you no more need to shake. You don't need anymore to jump. This path of activity is helping you, it is kind of a group like Mystic Rose or Primal, between group and moving towards meditation. To get this shift from doing groups to actually sit there. What more is needed? I love it the most. I trusted it absolutely, there is so much clarity in that. It is so trustworthy, I love it the most and this is when meditation starts to happen, when you no more need to be led into it or led through it. You can be led into meditation when you have never meditated before, but a meditator who knows what is meditation, knows that being led into meditation, you are using the creativity of mind, of imagination. And then you "go in", you "go deep", and then they speak about expansion, more and more expansion, but it is all the power of mind, of imagination. This is not when meditation happens yet. Meditation points to you, it points to nothing should ever happen. To learn to enjoy and value what is. Nothing should happen. Mind has to be in love with the joy of what is, because what is isalready such a miracle, what more do you want? No need to use the power of mind, of imagination. No need for that, it is not used, a meditator does not use imagination, just the joy of what is, this is the device. No need to use the power of mind, of imagination.Meditation is the highway. If you are absolutely in love with meditation you are on a highway. This was for me. I was on the highway. I was so much in love with meditation, absolutely trustworthy, in love with that, I would not look left or right, just sidha sidha, straight forward. If you're on a highway, there are many stations, you can take a right, a left. Let's look what is all about crystals, let's look about esoteric things, you can go all these ways. I always nicely bypassed, because once you know what is meditation, you no longer look for meanings—because any meaning is just another thought isn't it? It's just another thought, what meanings are you looking for? With looking for meanings, you overlook what is, it is so clear the device, straight highway back home. So how? What is the how? I can only say being on the path, I was not interested in anything fancy. All I wanted was the device all the Zen masters speak about, I wanted to enjoy the cup of tea, ordinariness, life itself. This now. If you can do so, this is a grace, to come back home. There you can come to know what is eternal life, because it is all known in that now.

You go into Imagination

It is not known by going into the esoteric and looking for auras and this and that. These are different devices, these people are doing groups. These are just devices on the path until you are ready for what is—the only value. Until you are ready that you can actually value what is the most obvious and ordinary and has been always here and is eternal. It is ordinary. Until you are ready to value that, you may have to go into the esoteric. You go into the esoteric because you can't value yet what is. That's why you go into imagination, desires, and the cup goes upside down and you look into the glass for light with all these beautiful colors, and you look somewhere else for truth because you are so bored with the cup of tea. Something is missing, there must be moooorrre!! It is not known by going into the esoteric and looking for auras.Then you start having all this quest in your mind and believing in separation. You have questions in your mind and you wait for the answer to come and then you almost hear voices speaking to you maybe like the neighbor in Hindi and it's translated to give your answer in your mother tongue. This is what I call paranoid. It is all because you're on the path and looking for answers in so many ways, waiting for answers, so you start believing as if people are talking about you or laughing about you. All this paranoia, it is there, it comes with that. Does it make any sense? No, yes what? The answer is not there. You are the answer, you are the answer! All the Buddhas say you are a Buddha, you are enlightened, you only overlook with your esoteric whatever. It is simply too ordinary. Are you ready for that? To value what is? Isn't it a miracle? Isn't it already such a miracle this situation? No, yes, no, what? It is a miracle. What more do you want, what are you looking for, God? (Laughter) Yes, beautiful laughter, beautiful laughter! This is all what I want, to come home to my breakfast table which I left in the first place when I got up and thought there must be more, What are you looking for… God?and it is beautiful, you have to get up from this breakfast table and to a certain point say my God!—there must be more and you have to go far away from home in the so-called wrong direction, ekdum nice, because the path is bound to be long, bound to be difficult, has to be long and difficult. If the path is not difficult and long you will not be able to value what is in the end the most easy. You will not be able to value that. No, yes, what? You will not value that.

This Body can drop Anytime

How I got enlightened? Being authentic, absolutely authentic. When I came to Osho, all what mattered to me, I want to know about life and death. I want to know about this as well, what is it about this life which was always a miracle to me but has this fear I have to die? Somewhere I feel cheated by that, what a mess, right? It's like Buddha. Buddha he was a son of a king. The people who look into the stars, into the future about the son they said that this son has the potential to become a master or a leader, something very special. So the parents were very worried that if he would go on the spiritual path he would become just a nobody. Maybe he will start cleaning the roads. It's bound to be like that, he will no more look to be somebody special, so the parents were very afraid that he could go in this direction. So what they did, they tried that this son should never come to know that death exists. So there were flowers in his room, but before they died they would remove these flowers so he would never come to know that these flowers to a certain point will simply die. So somehow, I don't know how, they managed that this son never came to know that there is going to be death. Authenticity brought me home. I never wanted to be special.But there was a time when he accidentally came out of the gate, was illegal, he went out of the gate and people passed by—a group, a line of people and they were carrying a person, lying on something, were carrying that person and this son of the King he asked one of these people what happened to this person lying there. What has happened to this person? Where are you going? They said, this man he has died and we are going to bring him to the funeral and we are going to burn his body. Now this Buddha was really shocked. My God! This person died, there is death. He was in such a shock that this pushed him, or gave him the idea that I have to come to know what is all about this life and death. I have to come to know before death comes. What is all about this miracle? I want to know only that. And it was very similar for me as well, because I was in a car accident when I was seven years old, and this question was always in my mind. Through this accident, I came to know that this body could drop anytime, school or nothing else was anymore important after that. I just wanted to live. I was almost in a panic, this body could drop anytime. I had no time even to read a book, I wanted to live, I wanted to travel, I wanted to see, I wanted to meet people who knew what was going on, who knew all about this life and death. Authenticity brought me home. I never wanted to be special. I didn't want to become enlightened, to become somebody special at all.

Poonjaji and "Who am I"

When I came to Poonjaji, I thought I knew who am I after so many years meditating every day, no kidding, seven to eight hours a day. I would sit with Osho two times a day and the rest of the time I was also sitting. I was living in a bamboo hut, there was no electricity. I didn't need electricity because I would close my eyes anyhow. But soon I came to know, being with Poonjaji, that I did not know who am I. A meditator still doesn't come to know who am I. I was so much in love with that, with meditation, with that situation, so much in love that I thought I knew who am I and this was my love affair. But where there is a love affair there is separation, no? And I knew that, and I also knew very soon, because I am very fast—a highway meditator. I knew this love affair had to disappear. No more separation. Osho sometimes said on the path, it was a Zen story, that one day the master will come to you, and if you are a meditator, he will touch you and say, now you can just drop meditating, you are enlightened. What good is it if he says I am enlightened and I do not know?So somehow I expected when I went to Poonjaji that he may recognize that I am enlightened, I must be enlightened. I am so in love with that, I do not know what more I could do, you hear me? And I expected Poonjaji will maybe recognize I am enlightened, because this is what I heard sometime from Osho, it maybe will happen like that. But soon I noticed, my God, what would I get out of it if Poonjaji would say I am enlightened. Nothing! What would change? Nothing, isn't it. What would change if Poonjaji would say I am enlightened? I could say to people: Ah, he says I'm enlightened. This all I could say, but it would not change anything. What I get out of it if he says I am enlightened and I do not know… No, what, yes?… If there is no recognition? Everybody is enlightened. A realization needs to happen and this has not happened and it will not happen if somebody tells me I am enlightened. So I dropped it immediately, completely useless. So with all these years meditating I still didn't know who am I. But what great maturity I already had with being so much in love with that reflection of who am I. But I still didn't know who am I, you hear me? (Silence) When I left Poonjaji, I still didn't know who am I. He worked very much to the point, I got hints, but it was not yet really clicking. It was a slower process than my intensive satsang because different people are there and it was not so focused at that time.

Coming to know without Doubt

I did not yet know who am I, but I came back to the Osho ashram after about two weeks, and two months later I came to know without doubt who am I. It was a laugh, a joke, a beautiful laugh, how easy, how simple and obvious, and how I could overlook! And in a way it was also fine to overlook because the love affair I had before was very important. So that I will not say "So what!", you hear me, because it is too obvious, too easy. Almost too easy to be true, but you can't deny it is true, the Earth is round, it is very scientific, it is not esoteric to know who am I. It is so ordinary, surprisingly ordinary. You think you know what is ordinary. You don't know what is ordinary. We have ideas, what ordinary is, but it does not look like anything. Enlightenment is not something fancy.If you hear ordinary, you think it must be boring, no? When we think of ordinary, this is definitely boring, but it is not what I have come to know. When I came to know who am I, it is so ordinary, so surprisingly ordinary, I can only say I never ever knew before what ordinariness was in fact. Really, I didn't know ever. It is not boring at all, it can't be, it is never boring. It is just not possible. (Silence)

Experience is a Come and a Go

Enlightenment is not something fancy. It has nothing to do with experience. Experience!!!!… ahhh!!!! How long will it stay? How long? Any experience is a come and a go. It is not eternal. The nature of experience is a come and a go, and being on the path you have many experiences. You do need experiences because of the quest in your mind. It is natural, the only thing is that you are in a misunderstanding because you are clinging to experiences. If only it would stay forever then I am enlightened! This must be it, this is it. But you can't hold on to experience. You can, but the experience will go. It is the nature of experience, that it comes and it goes, it can't be otherwise. It is natural to go. It can't stay forever. So because you are so much excited about your experience, satori, and this light and I don't know what else, you have experiences, an explosion maybe. (Laughter) Yeah, I have experienced explosions too. You are so excited about all the experiences you have and you overlook what the experiences are pointing to. Mind thought that someone has to take care of this "me". What a suffering!So when the experience leaves you and becomes only a memory in your bookstore, what you get out of that? Nothing. Oh! I had a Satori! (Laughter). You are maybe only going to be the "spiritual best", that is all. But what do you get out of it? And where is it now? Only a memory in your bookstore. Yes, you have something collected in your pocket and being the spiritual best, so what? Your tendency is to overlook what it points you to, whatever experience you could have, it always points you to what is the most ordinary and eternal. But you overlook. (Silence) So some months later when I was in my bamboo hut, I came to know—to a certain point I came to know who am I. How beautiful! No effort, no question of no effort either. What an unburdening for this mind to know who am I and to know the eternity of that, and already I had been in love with that but I am no more separate from that. I AM that.

The Last Silly Question

It is not to be understood—a recognition needs to be there, you hear me. But in that time I only knew who am I, this is not yet enlightenment because the mind, the bookstore, is still in the wrong vision. So I continued meditating. Nowhere to go, nothing to find, I am found—but I still sat in meditation not waiting for anything. But a lot of Aha! Aha! came to me—recognition from the mind in rest, not separate from who am I. And there was a period of about a year when there were still questions and wondering left in the mind. Some little silly questions. Yes, the silly questions are very important. I was simply liberated by that who am I, as more and more Aha! Aha! Aha! came. And there was a point, it was about a year later, when it was absolutely complete. It was really from here to there. I actually noticed it much later. What happened was the last silly question was so-called answered. And with that everything else just fell into its place, into perfection. Haa!!! And mind was completely liberated by that who am I and no more separate from that. Mind is meant to analyze the boundaries about medicine and science, but it is not meant to analyze "who am I".No more quest, no more wondering, no more need to know anything because all is known—at ease with not knowing because has come to know it all, you hear me. At ease, finally at ease with not knowing. But this not knowing is not ignorance. In this not knowing, there is wisdom, because mind in rest has come to know, that's why mind is at ease with not knowing, you hear me. At ease, no more need to wonder, no more need to figure out anything—at home.

Mind has been trying the Impossible

At home. With that, the mind is freed from this impossible task of trying to do, to become like a Buddha, freed from all that trouble. Mind has tried to do what can't be done. It can't be done, you are that, you only overlook. We have tried all these impossible things, that was the suffering, but mind had to do so because mind has to come to know its limitation and as I told you, needs to have a long and difficult path and needs to struggle and try many things. And it helps the mind to a certain point on the path to mature, but it also will come to know that even though it all helped me, so far so good, still liberation has not happened. I keep on circling again and again, I am getting better and here I am getting worse again, you hear me. The name may change, the form may change, but the story is continuing yackety-yak and you keep on wondering. Mind is busy with something it should not be busy with at all, is not meant to be busy with. So once mind is freed from trying to do this impossible task and suffering from it, it is freed and liberated. Eternal holiday—eternal—finally freed! You are not what you think you are, and you are not what you feel you are.This poor me is gone, oh I am so glad that I do not need to take care of this poor me anymore! Mind thought somebody has to take care of this "me", if nobody does, I will do it, but what a suffering it was, wasn't it? So busy with all that, I could not even read a book because I am going to be carried away to London and I am not living "here now", right? What ideas we had. If mind is freed, finally it can live its nature, what it is meant to do. The beloved servant mind has brought with itself a beautiful creativity, what I call the bookstore. It is an amazing creativity from source. And this creativity has done a lot of great things. We go up to the moon, we have electricity, we have amazing computers. This mind has done such amazing things, and medicine. So when mind is freed from all this impossible task, it can finally enjoy its true nature and do what it is meant to do, use its creativity in a right way, then you are no more ruled by the mind, by the bookstore, you know how to use the bookstore. No more analyzing who am I. Mind is not meant to analyze who am I. It is meant to analyze the boundaries about medicine and science, but not who am I, you hear me. You are not what you think you are—I am good, I am bad, now I feel good I am this, now I feel bad. You are not what you think you are and you are not what you feel you are. So I came to know who am I, and then the mind slowly slowly was liberated by that who am I as I continued to sit in meditation. There were a lot of Aha! Aha! happening.

I push you off the Cliff

And what I do in intensive satsang is point you to what I have come to know, by going through "investigations" I have created for you to see with your own authority what is true from the very root. So you don't need to sit all these years and hours in meditation, as I did. All that is needed is a certain maturity—you have been on the path maybe with different masters, you have tried many things, you have come to know the basic message that Osho taught us again and again. The message is very ordinary, so we overlook. It is so ordinary, what was the most important, what Osho pointed us to again and again. You have to be very illegal to be free. You can't belong anywhere.He speaks essential truth, but also a lot of relative truth, he has a lot of opinions about many things. That was his way because he went along with us on the path and he invited everybody, which I do not do. For public Open Satsang, everybody is invited, but for intensive Satsang—The Last Satsang—I choose the people. I hope that they are ready, as best I can, to create a small group. Osho emptied our minds, talking about everything from essential truth to relative truth, philosophy, religion, even politics, you name it. He did that so well and this is how he exhausted our minds clearing out a lot of garbage. A lot of compassion is needed for what Osho did, it is the real work. What I do is nothing in comparison. I am really lazy, I just invite these people who have finally come to the end of the path, and push them over the cliff. I just give them a little push and they fall, that's all. Nice job, I like it. (Laughter) It is fun. It is maybe scary but there is a lot of laughter, and without a scare, how will laughter happen. (Silence)

Following the ringing Bells

Osho always said, so many times he said it—"be a light unto yourself". How many people really have heard that? Be a light unto yourself. I heard it. The first thing he said is do not ever belong anywhere. Yes, I took sannyas, I wore the mala but I never belonged anywhere, that's why I was this bad, illegal sannyasin Dolano, working over there. No, yes, what? I never belonged anywhere. I could not go along with any organization, it was just not possible. I felt strangled, it was not my path. I was on the highway, alone. I followed the ringing bells—be a light onto yourself. The ringing bells which have nothing to do even with Osho. No, yes, what? There are ringing bells or not. I only go where I hear the ringing. I trust it. What do I have to lose? I have nothing to lose, I am lost anyway. (Laughter) So, these ringing bells, wherever it leads I just go along. You have to be very illegal to be free. You can't belong anywhere. Be a light unto yourself, there you may walk in darkness but I am the light, Ho Ho Ho! No, yes, what? (Laughter) There is the light, it feels so safe. I don't care if I go straight to hell, ekdum nice, so long as the bells are ringing. There are no bells in hell, I tell you. You know hell very well, yeah, there are no ringing bells, there is no Ho Ho Ho! I keep sharing the Last Satsang because people do wake up.Even in darkness, there is light. I can see nothing, I am so lost, but Ho Ho Ho! No, there are the ringing bells—be a light unto yourself. But how many people could hear "be a light unto yourself". People would say Osho says this, Osho says that, this is the light unto myself. But this is not what Osho meant. No, yes, what? Osho prepared us if you had open ears. You had to be very illegal with open ears, so-called illegal, as Osho as well speaks a lot of relative truth and not always and only the ultimate truth. And you had to risk being alone with that, everybody else seemed to move to the right, but I went sidha sidha, straight forward. I don't care to a certain point, authenticity is important, wherever it leads. But I was authentic on the path, meditation. I knew the authenticity of wanting to come home, not wanting to be somebody special. I am ready to disappear as a separate entity. I am so in love with that, I do not want anymore to be separate from that, and for that I need to disappear, no, yes, what? Happily, happily, nothing to fear. No, yes, what?

The End of the Path

Osho brought us towards the cliff. If you come to the edge of the cliff, it means you come to the end of your path. There you can only look down, there is no more path in front of you, isn't it, you have come to the end of the path. Of course you can choose to go right and walk a little longer along the cliff, yeah, no, yes, what? But Osho also said, if you meet me on the path then kill me. This is what he wants you to do. You can't wake up without doing that because you still believe in illusion. You will have to get the ultimate joke. The truth is there is nobody but if you do not have the courage to recognize it, you can't wake up. The greatest gift that you could give back is for you to wake up.Osho said many times, the greatest gift you could give back is for you to wake up—this I know for myself. I keep on sharing this Intensive Satsang which is The Last Satsang, because people do wake up. That's why I keep on doing it, otherwise I would have stopped a long time ago. It just works, so I go on. The Last Satsang, nobody is talking the way I talk. I want YOU to wake up! I do not want you to be a follower. It is the end, I am only good with that. When I came to know, when I say the drop dropped, after a year when the mind was complete in its liberation, the last silly quest was over and everything fell into its place, it happened suddenly from here to there. I had forgotten all about enlightenment, about anything because I was already so fine, I didn't think of enlightenment. I was only painting and listening to music, that was all, and during that time there was another Aha! and that was the last Aha! With that, in that same moment I just simply came to know what enlightenment is. I recognized enlightenment and there was nobody there with me and I did not need anybody there with me to tell me that I am right, you hear me. Osho said it many times, and there I could understand what he meant, the entrance is so small that you can't take anyone with you, you can't and you are not allowed to take anyone with you. You are absolutely alone with this recognition. Each focused conscious body-mind organism needs to re-recognize enlightenment as if it has never ever happened before, with no idea in your mind. Because any idea is in the way and whatever you may have heard before about enlightenment, you have listened from the wrong vision, that's why you have tried to become that. You have never heard what Buddha spoke, you are listening with a wrong vision, you hear something else and it can't be understood. When I accidentally entered and recognized enlightenment, I was so surprised, it was definitely different from anything I ever understood or thought of, surprising—surprising. In a different way beautiful than what you think beautiful is. And with that recognition, I knew that this is what I have always been looking for. I didn't know it before but this was it, what I was always looking for, and I knew also that everybody is looking for that, for what else they would look for, if not for that, you hear me. I just simply know. What else do they want to come to know, if not that?