The last question:

Question 5

WHEN THE OTHER BANK IS THIS VERY BANK, THEN THERE IS NO NEED FOR ENLIGHTENMENT. IF ONE IS ALIVE IN THIS MOMENT, THEN WHY SHOULD ONE DREAM OF ENLIGHTENMENT?

These questions with 'then' and 'if' are very cunning questions. And you are not deceiving anybody else, you are deceiving yourself. Listen to the question again.

WHEN THE OTHER BANK IS THIS VERY BANK, THEN THERE IS NO NEED FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

If you have come to know that the other bank is this very bank then you have already become enlightened, there is no need. This is what enlightenment is all about. If you have come to know that this moment is all and the place that you are in is the whole, and that this world is the other world -- you have attained, you are liberated. Because if there is no other world there can be no desire. If this moment is all, all desire ceases.

WHEN THE OTHER BANK IS THIS VERY BANK, THEN THERE IS NO NEED FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

Absolutely true.

IF ONE IS ALIVE IN THIS MOMENT, THEN WHY SHOULD ONE DREAM OF ENLIGHTENMENT?

There is no need.

But these questions won't help. It has not happened to you. This bank is not yet the other bank and this moment is not yet the eternity.

You have listened to me and you have become parrot-like. I say that there is no need for any enlightenment, the very search for enlightenment is nightmarish -- but that is not going to help. You will have to drop all searching, then you will be able to realise the fact that you are already enlightened.

There is nowhere to go, you are already THERE; you have always been there from the very beginning, there has been no going astray. We have lived in God, we have lived as Gods, there is no other way.

If you have understood this then there is no need for enlightenment, it has already happened. If you have not understood it -- you have simply listened to me and you are playing with words -- then you will be getting into more and more confusion.

Your desire will not stop by these 'whens' and 'ifs'; it will continue. Your ambition will not disappear. Be more practical  -- don't become theoretical, don't become metaphysical, don't become philosophical. Be more practical. Listen to your own state. You have desires, you have desires for tomorrow, you have hopes for a future, you are continuously hoping that something is going to happen -- something great, something extraordinary, something special. And only to you and to nobody else.

These 'ifs' and 'whens' will not stop that. If you can drop all hoping, all desiring -- what Zen people call TRISHNA -- if you can drop all desire to become somebody or something, if you can drop becoming, if you understand the foolishness of hoping and it disappears and you are left without any trace of desire, that's what enlightenment is.

Then there is no need. But be practical.

I have heard.

Scientists concluded that the ice cap was going to melt and the whole world would be flooded within six months.

When the news broke, religious leaders went into deep conference. The Protestant hierarchy released a statement: 'Because of the impending disaster, Protestants will go to church and pray for two hours every day.'

The Catholics made an announcement: 'Because of the coming deluge, Catholics will make every other day, all day, a day of prayer, for the next six months.'

Rabbis from all over the land convened, then they too issued a message to the world: 'Because the whole world will be flooded, learn how to live under water.'

Be more practical, be more of a Jew.

Otherwise my words can mislead you. I have no intention even to guide you, but my words can misguide you because you can take them on the surface.

You can say, 'Yes, Osho says there is no need for enlightenment, so forget all meditation and be the fool you have always been.' This is not going to change you.

Try to understand each word that I say to you-. Each word that I utter is pregnant with tremendous meaning but you will have to decode it.

The rabbi had stood before the synagogue's board of directors for almost an hour pleading with them to buy a chandelier for the temple.

When he'd finished, Blum, the elderly president, stood up. 'What're we wasting time talkin' for?' he demanded. 'First of all, a chandelier -- we ain't got nobody who could even SPELL it!'

'Second, we ain't got nobody here who could PLAY it!'

'And third, what we need in the synagogue is more LIGHT!'

That's how things go. That's what the poor rabbi is saying all the time -- a chandelier is needed.

What I am saying to you is that you need a deep centering in the herenow so that no desiring of the world distracts you, no desire of liberation distracts you. You are so deeply herenow that you ARE simply herenow; your mind is moving nowhere else, your mind is not wandering anywhere.

In that pure moment, completely centred and grounded, YOU are enlightened -- but you will have to attain to that moment. And that cannot be attained by great philosophical talk -- you will have to work hard, you will have to be very practical.

Right now, as you are, you are completely drunk, drunk with desire.

He had been to a party and had imbibed a little too freely. Along about four in the morning he was staggering home. Crossing a bridge he met a policeman. The cop was a friend, and they leaned over the bridge rail to converse a bit.

'What's that down there in the water?' the drunk suddenly asked.

'Look again. That's the moon," said the cop.

He looked again, shook his head, and then demanded, 'Okay, okay. But how the hell did I get way up here?'

'Because the moon is so far down, how the hell did I get way up here?'

I go on talking to you knowing well that you are drunk with a thousand and one desires. I am telling you to drop these thousand and one desires. And you are ready to drop them...if I can give you a new desire for them, if I can give you a bigger substitute, if I can give you one great desire so that all desires can be sacrificed for it. You are ready to drop your desires but you are ready to drop them only for a greater desire. That I cannot do  -- the greater desire will be a greater bondage to you. Hence Zen people say that enlightenment is a nightmare. Hence Zen people say don't try to become a Buddha otherwise you will fall into the seventh hell. Don't try to reach to the ultimate reality because your very desire to reach it will hinder you. All desiring is a hindrance -- the desire for God and liberation also.

You would like me to give you a big desire, a desire with capital letters, so big that you can pour your small, tiny desires into it. But that is not what I am going to do. I want you to drop all your desires and not to substitute them with anything else. Only then can you be desireless.

Desireless, you are enlightened.

Enlightenment is not somewhere waiting for you, it is already here. It surrounds you right now. It is within you and without you. It is in every beat of your heart. But YOU are not here -- you are chasing your desires far away, somewhere in the future, on some planets. You are not to find enlightenment somewhere else, the only thing that you have to do is to come back home. Enlightenment is waiting for you there. You simply don't go anywhere -- that's all. The whole effort is negative -- don't go anywhere. Enlightenment is not a journey, it is your deepest core of being.

It is like you sleep in Poona and you dream in the night that you are in Philadelphia. And you are in Poona all the same, whether you dream of Philadelphia or not. You are lying down here sleeping in your room and in your dream you are in Philadelphia. In the morning you open your eyes and you say it was all a dream because you find yourself in Poona, not in Philadelphia.

Those who have awakened have found themselves in enlightenment. Philadelphia was a dream. This world is a dream  -- when you awake, this world disappears and you find yourself in the other world. This bank is a dream. When you awake, suddenly you find you have been always on the other bank and you were dreaming about this bank. Desire is a dream, desire is a dreaming process. It leads you away, but it leads you away only in the mind not in reality. In reality you are gods -- in minds, it depends. You can make anything out of your mind.

That's what Hindus say: that it is mind which makes you a tree, it is mind which makes you a tiger, it is mind which makes you a cuckoo, it is mind which makes you a man. When there is no mind, you are a god. God is your reality and everything else that you see is just dream.