Osho – Enlightenment is the transcendence of all dualities: pleasure, pain; love, hate, life, death — all oppositions

Question: So, We start from the idea of Pleasure. Can Enlightenment be the top most pleasure, as a definition?
Osho : It is not pleasure. Pleasure is always something opposed to pain. It is never separate from pain. So pain can become pleasure. That’s why there are masochists in the world who torture themselves and enjoy. Your so-called saints are nothing but people who know the art of changing pain into pleasure. Pain can become pleasure; vice versa is also true: pleasure can become pain.

For example, it is a great pleasure to kiss someone you love. But if you are forced to continue kissing — a gun behind you — how long is the pleasure going to be pleasure? Soon the pleasure will become a pain. You eat something: it is pleasant, there is pleasure; but if you eat too much it becomes pain — otherwise you wouldn’t see so many obese people.

Thirty million people in America are suffering from this disease. They cannot stop eating. The pleasure is so much that they go on eating, knowing perfectly well that it is going to become pain.
So one thing has to be understood: enlightenment is not pleasure because it can never become pain.

There is nothing opposite to enlightenment. The unenlightened person, his state of mind, is not opposite to the enlightened person and his state of mind. The unenlightened state is simply the absence of enlightenment — it is not opposed. It is like darkness…. You just bring a candle in the room and there is no darkness. It has never been there; it has no positive existence of its own, it is simply absence of light.

So the unenlightened person is simply asleep, the enlightened person is awake. There is no opposition. Enlightenment is the transcendence of all dualities: pleasure, pain; love, hate, life, death — all oppositions. Enlightenment is the situation where you have come to a point of witnessing all the opposites as complementaries and you are only a witness.

So I cannot say it is pleasure — I can say it is bliss. And that is the difference between bliss and pleasure. Pleasure needs something; you are dependent. If you love someone, you are dependent on the person-that’s why you are always afraid to lose them; also suspicious, also jealous. You love a woman — she is your pleasure, but side by side all these things are growing in you: suspicion…. You can never be certain whether she loves you or not, there is no way.

She can pretend. She may be loving somebody else — if not now, tomorrow. What is the guarantee that she will love you always? There are more beautiful people around, more talented, more charming, more charismatic; hence there is suspicion, fear, jealousy. This is your pleasure!

With all these things mixed in, what kind of pleasure is this? Bliss is absolutely pure. First, it is not dependent on anyone, it is your own. Its source is within you, it does not come from outside; hence, nobody can take it away. There is tremendous strength instead of weakness, instead of fear there is great fearlessness. Instead of feeling jealous, there is great compassion, because your bliss cannot be stolen, cannot be taken away.

When Alexander the Great came to India he wanted one sannyasin to come with him as a guest to Athens, because his master, Aristotle, had asked only one gift: “Bring an authentic sannyasin with you, because that is the only thing the West is unaware of. We don’t know what kind of man is a sannyasin.”

Wherever he went Alexander inquired, “Can I find an authentic sannyasin?” People said, “It is very difficult — you have come a little late. Three hundred years ago there was Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Sanjay Vilethiputta, Ajit Keshkambal and there were many people who were authentic, realized beings — but now it is very difficult to find such people. But you can go on searching as you go on invading the country; perhaps somewhere….”

He came across a man who was a naked fakir standing by the side of the river early in the morning — a beautiful sunrise. Alexander approaches him with his naked sword and tells him, “You have two alternatives: one, be Alexander the Great’s guest, which is a rare honor — it has never been given to anybody, and I can promise you it will not be given to anybody else again, so you will be unique — but you will have to come with me to Athens. My master wants to meet an authentic sannyasin.”

And the sannyasin laughed loudly and said, “First, you drop the idea of Alexander the Great. Anybody who thinks himself great is not great. One who is really great is not even aware of it. So first you drop that word. That is sick and shows inferiority. Secondly, put your sword back in its sheath; it won’t be needed. Thirdly, I am not coming. I am a man of freedom — wherever I want to go, I go. Nobody can force me, bribe me, threaten me. And you are trying everything: bribing me, persuading me, and with the naked sword threatening me.”

Alexander said, “Then the second alternative, is I will cut off your head.”
The Sannyasin laughed again. He said, “That you can do, because that does not matter: it will not touch my blissfulness at all. You can cut off my head, you can cut my body into as many pieces as you want, but you will not be able to touch my blissfulness, my ecstasy. That is beyond your reach. If it is your joy and if I can be of any help, I am ready: cut off my head.”

Alexander in his notes writes, “There have been only two times in my life when I felt really inferior. Here was a man who says, `You cannot touch my blissfulness, nor can you kill my spirit. You can destroy this house, I will find another — a fresher one, a newer one.”‘

Blissfulness is totally different from pleasure. Pleasure is of the body, joy is of the mind; bliss is of the soul. Listening to beautiful music you feel joy. Seeing beautiful architecture, sculpture, a painting, you feel joy. Seeing the Taj Mahal, listening to Mozart, you feel joy — that is of the mind.
Bliss is absolutely beyond both body and mind.

My teaching is not for pleasure, but for blissfulness. I am not against pleasure, remember. I am not against joy, remember. Have as much pleasure as you can, but don’t forget this is only the beginning. You have to go far. Unless you reach blissfulness, you have not arrived.

Source – Osho Book “The Last Testament, Vol3”