Question 1

Can one live and function in the world in a state of enlightenment or no-mind? is an enlightened person self-sufficient in the world?

 

 

THE STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT is not the state of individuality. There is no person in it. One who is enlightened is enlightened only because he is not; there is nobody to function. Activity continues, but there is nobody to do it. Functioning continues, but there is nobody to function it. Then it continues on its own... just as stars go on moving and the seasons move, and the sun rises, and the moon comes, and the tide, and the seas, and the rivers.

 

An enlightened person is one with the whole; the whole functions through him. His activity is perfect because he is not there to distort it. He is just like a hollow bamboo -- whatsoever song the whole chooses to sing through him, it is sung. There is nobody to hinder, there is nobody to obstruct.

 

An enlightened person is an enlightened emptiness... Luminous emptiness. He has disappeared. If you believe in the concept of god, if you use that term, then you can say god functions through him. If you don't like that term, then you can say the whole functions through him. But he is not to function there.

 

When you function you create anxiety. All your functioning is in some way a sort of conflict with the whole. It is a struggle; there is motive, there is desire, there is ambition. When you are there, all illnesses are there. When you are there, neurosis is there -- the ego is neurotic. It tries to impose its own goals on the whole -- which is impossible. It tries to do that which cannot be done, hence gets more and more frustrated, enters deeper and deeper into hell and misery.

 

An enlightened person simply allows; whatsoever happens is a happening. It is very difficult to conceive it because it is not of the mind. It is very difficult to understand it because there is no experience. You can understand it only when you have dissolved, when you have become that.

 

There is no way to understand a Buddha unless you become a Buddha -- because it is such a totally different dimension of existence. We have never tasted of it. It is simply impossible for the mind to conceive, because the mind functions through motive: there has to be a desire, there has to be a goal, there has to be the doer. The mind says if you don't do, how is it going to happen?

 

But millions of things are happening without anybody doing them. Who is doing the movement of the stars? Is not their functioning absolutely perfect? What is missing? What is lacking? Who is rushing these rivers to the ocean? Who goes on controlling the tide and the ebb? Who goes on maintaining this infinity, this immenseness? There is nobody. Because there is nobody, that's why it is so beautiful. Because there is nobody, that's why it is so absolutely perfect. If somebody is there, there is a possibility of error. If somebody is there, then there is a possibility of mistakes.

 

There is nobody -- it is out of emptiness.

 

The seed goes on sprouting. Each moment is a miracle, because each moment existence comes out of nothingness. Each moment the flower happens out of the blue. Nobody is forcing it, nobody is pulling it up. There is nobody to open the bud; it opens on its own accord. This is what Buddha calls the dhamma, the law, the ultimate law of life.

 

The enlightened person is no more in any conflict with the ultimate law; he has surrendered. He floats, he flows with the river. He has almost become a wave in the river, he does not exist separately.

 

CAN ONE LIVE AND FUNCTION IN THE WORLD IN A STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT OR NO-MIND?

 

Yes, one can function. One has functioned. Buddha lived forty-two years after he became enlightened. Mahavir lived forty years after he became enlightened. They functioned perfectly well. And yet, the beauty is, the grandeur is, that there was nobody doing it.

 

It is a moment to moment miracle. It is absolutely unbelievable, it is incredible to function out of nothingness, to function out of no-motive, to function out of no-mind. Just to function without having a center, without having a self.

 

An enlightened person is natural, spontaneous. He has no explanation why he is functioning. He will shrug his shoulders if you ask the question 'Why?' He cannot explain it, he can at the most say, 'It is how it is. It is how it is happening.' He will say, 'I don't know, because there is nobody to know it.' It is a mysterious functioning.

 

Of course the functioning is going to be totally different than your functioning. Out of your activity, anxiety arises, tension. Out of your activity, fear arises. Fear -- are you going to succeed or not? Tension -- because there is competition, conflict; others are also rushing towards the same goal. Will you be able to become rich? Will you be able to become that which you want? It doesn't seem to be easy.

 

Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me one day, 'When I was fourteen I decided that I was going to become the richest man in the world, whatsoever the cost.'

 

Then I asked him, 'Then what happened? You never became the richest man in the world. You may be the poorest. What happened then?'

 

He said, 'By the time I was twenty-one I thought it is easier to change my mind than to become the richest man in the world. It is easier to change my mind.'

 

Everybody wants to become the richest man of the world. Everybody wants to be the most powerful man in the world. Everybody wants to be the most strong, beautiful, intelligent, famous in the world. Of course much anxiety is created. In that anxiety you are in a sort of continuous illness, dis-ease, restlessness, a fever, in which you go on, continuously trembling. And every moment there is frustration waiting for you.

 

Hence people say, 'Man proposes and god disposes.' God has never disposed anything. In your very proposition you are disposing god, hence you get in trouble. Because the nature has its own way, the tao has its own way; it has its own destiny. It is as if a part is trying to go on its own journey, leaving the whole behind. It is not possible -- the part has to go with the whole. The tail has to go with the elephant. If the tail starts going on its own way against the elephant, separate from the elephant, then there is going to be trouble -- the tail will go mad. And actually it will have to drag with the elephant; there is no other way.

 

So there are only two types of people in the world. One, who have private goals -- they feel they are being dragged; they feel man proposes, god disposes. Then there is another type of people in the world -- very few, rare, far, far and few between, very few -- who have dropped all their propositions. They don't drag, they dance. They dance, because whatsoever god proposes they accept. And they have no private propositions, they don't have any desire of their own.

 

That's what Jesus says on the cross, that is his last message to the world -- 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done'. Just a moment before he has hesitated a little, just a moment before he shouted and said, 'Why have you forsaken me? Why? Why are you showing me all this?'

 

You cannot complain against Jesus -- that too is natural and human. He was only thirty-three, he was not yet old, he was just young, he had not seen the whole life yet, he had not tasted, he had not lived yet -- and suddenly he finds himself on the Cross, ridiculed, insulted, rejected by his own people. And it is natural that he shouts at god, 'Why have you forsaken me? Why are you showing me all this?' -- human, very human.

 

But immediately he became aware of it. It must have escaped -- this shouting against god -- in a moment of unawareness. The pain may have been too much, the misery was too much. Death was just close by; he was shocked. But he regained balance. He was going to propose something. He simply said, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.' He surrendered. He died as Christ.

 

In a single moment he was no more Jesus, he was Christ. In a single moment he was no more human, he was superhuman. The gap is very small. That's why Buddha says, 'Miss it by a single inch, or by a single moment and you are thrown millions of miles away.' Just a single inch was the difference between these two sentences -- there was not much gap, maybe a single breath. But he was just ordinary when he shouted against god -- human, weak. Just a moment later on he was reconciled; there was no problem then. If this is the way god wants it to happen, then this is the way it has to happen. He accepted.

 

A smile must have come to his face, and not only to his face but to his heart also. In that moment he must have expanded. Now there was nothing to shrink, to remain closed. Even death was accepted. When you accept death, you have accepted god. Everybody desires for life. When you accept life you don't accept much. When you accept death you have accepted all.

 

An enlightened person is one who has not only accepted death, who has really died. He is no more there, the house is absolutely empty. Or he is that emptiness. That emptiness is luminous, full of light. Now he moves hand and hand with god. Now wherever god takes him, to whatsoever land -- uncharted, unmapped -- he runs along, dancing. He is not dragged.

 

If you are dragged by life, then you must be fighting with it. If you are bored by life, then you must be fighting with it. If you are frustrated by life, you must be fighting with it. These are indications that you are not reconciled to life, that you have not yet become mature enough to surrender; you are childish, you are in a childish tantrum.

 

A man who is really mature has no will of his own. He says, 'Thy will be done.' It is only immature minds who go on carrying their own will, and of course they suffer. Will brings suffering, will is the way to hell. You bring suffering, you are the way to hell. You create suffering.

 

Of course, an enlightened person functions totally differently. He himself does not know where he is going, and he is not worried about it either. He does not think about it -- where he is going. He trusts: wherever he is going, it is good. His trust is total and infinite.

 

He trusts life, you trust yourself. He trusts the whole, you trust a tiny part. He trusts the immense, the infinite, you trust the mediocre human mind. His trust makes him wise, your trust makes you stupid. You doubt the whole and you trust yourself. He has dropped himself and he trusts the whole. He is never to be frustrated, he has no regrets. He never looks back, because whatsoever was, was -- and whatsoever was, was good.

 

And it is not just only a mind thing. He feels it, his whole existence is radiated with 'yes!' He says 'yes' to life, you go on saying 'no'. No-saying creates ego, yea-saying drops the ego, helps the ego to drop and disappear.

 

The enlightened person is an absolute, unconditional 'yes'. It is very difficult to understand it unless you have tasted something of it. That is the only way to know about it.

 

IS AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON SELF-SUFFICIENT IN THE WORLD?

 

That's why I say you can understand it only if you have known it, if you have become it. Otherwise you will go on asking questions which are irrelevant. For example: IS AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON SELF-SUFFICIENT IN THE WORLD?

 

He has no self, so how can he be self-sufficient? He has no self, so how can he be in any way self-sufficient? I am not saying that he is discontented. I am not saying that he is unsatisfied, and I am not saying that he is not sufficient. I am simply saying that he cannot be self-sufficient because he has no self.

 

An enlightened person comes to know that independence is impossible, dependence also impossible. The reality is neither dependent nor independent; the reality is interdependent. We exist together. And when I say 'we', the trees are included, the mountains are included, the skies are included. When I say 'we', everything is included, nothing is excluded. We exist together. We are together. Our very being is togetherness. Nobody is self-sufficient.

 

That's what ordinarily we are trying to become -- self-sufficient. That is our whole struggle -- so that we are no more dependent on anybody. But just think: is it possible to be self-sufficient? And if it is possible for a man to become self-sufficient, will he be alive? He will be dead. Only when you are in your grave are you self-sufficient. Otherwise you will have to breathe -- and you cannot be self-sufficient about it. You will have to take in the breath, the vitality, the PRANA. You will have to wait for the sun to make you warm. You will have to eat the fruit of the trees so their juice becomes your blood. You will need billions of things. How can you be self-sufficient? The very idea is foolish.

 

But there are people, the so-called saints -- who go on teaching you 'become self-sufficient'. That is an ego trip. It is not possible in the nature of things to be self-sufficient because self is a falsity. Self is just an idea, it has no reality, so how can you create sufficiency around a false idea? Self in itself is non-existential, so how can you create sufficiency around something which does not exist?

 

The enlightened person is one who looks into life and comes to know that 'I am not, only god is, truth is. Truth is self-sufficient, the whole is self-sufficient. How can I be self-sufficient?' We are linked with everything else, and this linking is really complex. I am not only linked to you, you are not only linked to these trees, you are not only linked to the sun today -- you are linked to ALL the people who have ever lived on the earth. If your parents were not there you would not have been here. If your grandparents were not there you would not have been here. Just go back, go back -- if Adam and Eve were not there you would not have been here.

 

So not only are we linked with the contemporary existence, we are linked with the whole past -- not only of humanity, but of the whole universe. This is easy to understand -- that we are linked with the whole past -- otherwise how can we be? We are part of a procession, part of a river, an ongoing river. You are also linked with the future. It is a little more difficult because we think that maybe it is right -- we are linked with the past -- but how are we linked with the future?

 

A river has two banks. It cannot flow with only one bank, otherwise it will never reach the ocean. The other bank may be hidden in deep mist, you may not be able to see it, it may be very far away. You cannot see it -- it is beyond the horizon -- but still you can think that it has to be there. The past is one bank of the river of time, the future is another bank. Without the future the past cannot exist; and without the past and the future the present cannot exist. The present is the river, the past is one bank, the future is another bank.

 

We are not only linked with the past, we are linked with the future also. You are not only linked with your parents, you are linked with your children also -- children who are not born yet. You are not only one with the past that has been here, but with the future that is going to be here. You are linked with the yesterday and the tomorrow -- otherwise the today cannot exist. It has to exist between yesterday and the tomorrow -- yesterdays and tomorrows. The today is just a middle turn.

 

If you look that way, then in space we are linked with everything. If the sun dies today we all will die. It is so far; the light takes ten minutes to reach to us. Ten minutes doesn't look such a big time, but for light to travel that much it is really big, because the light travels so fast -- one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second.

 

The sun is ten minutes away. But if it dies, suddenly you will see these trees dying, suddenly you will see yourself shrinking and dying. Suddenly you will see the whole beauty disappears from the earth, because the whole warmth disappears from the earth. Warmth is life. The very throb of the heart is connected with the sun. But the scientists say the sun itself is connected to some source of light, yet not discovered. Somewhere at the very center of the whole existence there must be a source the sun is connected with.

 

Everything is connected. Have you watched a spider's web? Just touch it anywhere and the whole web trembles. Exactly that way is life. Touch it anywhere... touch a leaf of grass and you have touched all the stars, because everything is so interconnected. There are no boundaries -- we are not islands, we are a continent. Nothing defines you. All definitions are manmade. All definitions are just like the fence around your house -- it does not divide the earth. All boundaries are like lines on the map -- it does not divide the earth, it does not divide the ocean, it does not divide the sky. It is only on the map.

 

An enlightened person is one who has dropped all demarcations; who is not a Christian, who is not a Hindu, who is not a Mohammedan, who is not a Buddhist, who is not a communist, who is not a fascist, who is not man, who is not woman, who is not young, who is not old -- who has dropped all lines of demarcation, who lives without definition. To live without definition is to live infinitely, because all definition is a finitude. To define means to make finite.

 

An enlightened person is indefinable, infinite. He has no lines.

 

Somebody asked Bokuju, a zen master, 'Master, you say everything is one. Then is a dog also a Buddha?' That is a zen way of asking, 'Is a dog also god?' Bokuju did not answer verbally; he jumped on his fours and started barking. He was a Buddha, an enlightened being. He simply showed that, 'Yes. Look -- here is a dog barking, and here is a Buddha too.' A dog is nothing but god in reverse. Just read it backwards; that is the only difference.

 

Everything is divine and everything is one.

 

The enlightened person is not self-sufficient. He is sufficient, certainly -- but not self-sufficient. Sufficient because there is no problem for him -- the whole is there available for him. The whole goes on supplying him even without asking. The whole takes care. He has dissolved into the whole; now the whole is responsible. The whole takes care of him. He is protected by the whole, he is sheltered by the whole. He is at home in the whole. Whatsoever happens is welcome, because it is happening through the whole. How can it be wrong? 'Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come.' He is just a zero.

 

So I cannot say he is self-sufficient. He is tremendously sufficient, but not self-sufficient. His sufficiency comes not from his self, his sufficiency comes because he has dropped his self. He is sufficient because he is with the whole -- now how can he lack anything? It is impossible to lack anything. The sun is with him, the moon is with him, the trees, the rivers, the oceans -- he is no more poor.

 

An enlightened person is the richest person possible, but his richness comes from surrender, not from fight. He does not... he has not any conflict with the whole. He has fallen in harmony, he is in a harmonia.

 

-Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #10, Q1”