InnerSelf.com

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all. Maybe you have gotten lost in many, many dreams, that's all -- but you are there. God is your very being.

So the first thing is, don't think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal; it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration; each desire again and again throws you into a ditch.

This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise. That this will give you what you have longed for, that it will fulfill you. Again and again hope arises.

Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.

Don't be disturbed when I say that enlightenment is a state of hopelessness -- it is not negative. Hope arises no more; desire is created no more. Future disappears. When there is no desire there is no need for the future. The canvas of the future is needed for the desire. You paint your desires on the canvas of the future -- when there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the canvas unnecessarily? You drop it. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color tubes? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future and the color and brush and technique, and all that, comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, you throw away the colors -- then suddenly you are here now.

This is what Buddha calls chittakshana -- a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment. There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, there is no special place for it -- it can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment there should be no thought, no desire, no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....