This too has to be understood. Even when a disciple becomes enlightened, it does not matter, his gratefulness becomes even fuller. It is not that now there is no need of the master. It is not that “Now I am equal to the master, now I am experiencing the same buddhahood as the master.” No, it is not thought of in that way, because that is the way of the ego. The ego has been lost long ago. The way of gratitude, the way...

Maneesha, I told you yesterday that Isan was trying hard to be a rebel against Ma Tzu -- not that he did not love Ma Tzu, but Ma Tzu had become a tradition, and he wanted to get away from the traditional mind, because tradition kills everything. It makes the dead more significant than the living. It is such an absurd effort, to force living human beings to worship the dead rather than finding the deeper layers of life...

If you are identified you feed the mind; if you are not identified you stop feeding it. It drops dead on its own accord. There is a beautiful story. I love it very much…. One day Buddha is passing by a forest. It is a hot summer day and he is feeling very thirsty. He says to Ananda, his chief disciple, “Ananda, you go back. Just three, four miles back we passed a small stream of water. You bring a little water — take ...

Subhuti “Subhuti lived in the crowd -- nobody even knew his name -- and when this news came that flowers were showering on Subhuti everybody wondered, 'Who is this Subhuti? We never heard about him. Has it happened by some accident? Have the gods chosen him wrongly?' -- because there were many who were higher in the hierarchy. Subhuti must have been the last. This is the only story about Subhuti.” “Buddha had thousand...

Nagarjuna Nagarjuna is a great philosopher, one of the greatest of the world. Only a few people in the world, very few, have that quality of penetration that Nagarjuna has. So, his way of talking is very philosophical, logical, absolutely logical. Nagarjuna is one of the greatest disciples of Buddha, and one of the most penetrating intellects ever. Only very few people -- once in a while, a Socrates, a Shankara -- can...

Question 1 Beloved Osho, Buddha had many enlightened people around him, yet he felt something special for this one enlightened person. Is there something different in enlightenments? Yes, Buddha, had many enlightened persons around, but the key can be given only to such a person who can become a master in his own right, because the key is to be delivered on and on. It has to be kept alive. It was not going to become a...

Gautam Buddha Disciple Ananda Enlightenment And now, since Buddha, many scientific developments have happened.... We don’t know what Buddha actually said although he never used anybody like Ouspensky or Plato or Vivekananda; he himself was his own interpreter. But there arose a problem when he died. He spoke for forty-two years – he became enlightened when he was about forty and then he lived to eighty-two. For forty-...

Manjushri and Samantabhadra Enlightenment Such statements cannot be made anywhere else than in the world of Zen. Manjushri and Samantabhadra are two of the great disciples of Gautam Buddha, who became enlightened while he was alive. Just the story of Manjushri becoming enlightened will suffice you to understand that these people, Manjushri and Samantabhadra, were as valuable as Gautam Buddha himself. Manjushri used to...

This story is one of the most significant ones, because from this was passed the tradition of Zen. Buddha was the source, and Mahakashyap was the first, the original master of Zen. Buddha was the source, Mahakashyap was the first master, and this story is the source from where the whole tradition — one of the most beautiful and alive that exists on earth, the tradition of Zen — started. Try to understand this story. B...

You must be here and now, and you must not be – you must not be – an ego. Then you are open, and whenever you are open the grace is already flowing; it has been flowing forever. If you are not getting it, it is not something that you can get by doing. The more you do, the more it will be impossible for you to get it. The whole effort of the master is to teach you nondoing, nonaction. Or in other words, the whole effor...

Once it happened that this elephant who was Buddha in a past life was living in a forest and the forest caught fire, the forest was on fire. It was a very terrible fire. The whole forest was burning and all the animals and birds were escaping from the forest. This elephant was also running. The forest was very big, and from running and the heat all around and the fire he got tired. Just then he saw a tree which was no...

Osho on Sudhana Enlightenment The story is that Sudhana was learning with many teachers, many techniques of meditation. And then he came in contact with an enlightened master, Maitreya. As he touched Maitreya's feet and Maitreya looked at him, Maitreya snapped his fingers -- and something strange happened. Sudhana simply became silent. He had never been in such a space, even though he had been practicing meditation, h...

Question 4: Beloved Osho, Can the watcher, the consciousness, ever be judgmental about what he sees, or is it still the ego judging the ego, the mind condemning itself? Consciousness is never judgmental. Consciousness is only a mirror. The mirror reflects, but it never gives any judgment. A beautiful woman may be standing in front of it or an ugly woman may be standing in front of it. It reflects both without any dist...

There is a story in Buddha’s life: One day one of Buddha’s sannyasins was passing through a street where he had gone to beg. The most beautiful woman of that town, the prostitute of the town, fell in love with the monk. She came down out of her house and requested the monk to come and reside with her. And soon the rainy season was coming so the prostitute said, “Why don’t you stay with me during the rainy season? — be...

Osho on Mahakashyap In Zen monasteries they have been laughing and laughing and laughing. Laughter becomes prayer only in Zen, because Mahakashyap started it. Twenty-five centuries ago, on a morning just like this, Mahakashyap started a new trend, absolutely new, unknown to the religious mind before -- he laughed. He laughed at the whole foolishness, the whole stupidity. And Buddha didn't condemn; rather, on the contr...

The buddha represents dhamma, truth, in two ways. Verbally he communicates with the students; nonverbally, through silence, through energy, he communicates with the disciples. And then there comes the ultimate unity where neither communication nor communion is needed, but oneness has been achieved -- where the master and the disciple become one, when the disciple is just a shadow, when there is no separation. These ar...

Osho Quotes on Bodhidharma I have a very soft corner in my heart for Bodhidharma. That makes it a very special occasion to speak about him. Perhaps he is the only man whom I have loved so deeply that speaking on him I will be almost speaking on myself. That also creates a great complexity, because he never wrote anything in his life. No enlightened being has ever written. Bodhidharma is not an exception, but by tradit...

In the long history of Zen there are milestones. Mahakashyapa is the first, but not much is known about him – in Buddhist scriptures he is mentioned only once. Just one mention and yet he is regarded as the greatest disciple of Gautam Buddha. For twenty years he has not spoken a single word, no question, just sat by the side of Gautam Buddha. Even Gautam Buddha is concerned: ”This is a strange fellow – he has not even...