Q) How Does Enlightenment Affect Our Everyday Lives?

A) That is something you can experience only after enlightenment happens to you! If you are bothered now about how it affects your everyday life, then be very clear, you still want some portion of your everyday life not to be affected. You want it to remain, to be retained as it is now. So naturally, you can't become enlightened! As long as you want to retain some part of you, some portion of your life, be very clear, you are not ready to enter into the zone of enlightenment.

This is exactly what I mean when I say, 'Although you say you are ready for enlightenment, you are not really ready.'

It is a pure alchemy process; when you enter into it, you will be a totally new, different being. People ask me, 'Will I renounce everything and go away?' For enlightenment, you don't have to renounce anything; just renounce what you don't have, that's enough. There are thousands of things in your life you don't have but, yet, you are living with them.

They have become your fantasies and desires. Just renounce all these that you don't have, that is enough. You can become enlightened.

You don't have to renounce what you have. Live intensely with what you have; just renounce what you don't have, that's enough. As of now, you have an idea as to how your future should be. You even have fantasies about how the continuity of it should be. If you think that your future should be a continuity of your present, even that idea is a desire; it is one more fantasy.

As of now, if you can drop what you don't have, that's enough; you can become enlightened. All you need to do is just drop what you don't have, and start living with what you have, the present moment. Never think, 'How will I be transformed, how will things be changed, should I go for it or not?' etc.

I have seen many people at Universal Studios. Before entering the ride, they ask the people who have just come out of the ride, 'How was it? Is it alright for me to go inside?' They ask for opinions. In enlightenment, you can't ask for anybody's opinions. You have to simply take the risk of entering into it. If you want to have a particular idea when you enter, you will never be able to enter. It's a pure risk but a beautiful risk!

Q) In the organization, Alcoholics Anonymous, if somebody feels they are not yet ready to give up drinking, they ask for the desire which desires to give up drinking. You have said that the reason we are not yet enlightened is because we aren't ready to be enlightened. How do I desire for a desire to be enlightened?

A) Actually, when I talk about desirelessness and the ecstasy of that, people immediately start creating one more desire about desirelessness. All you need to do is understand the ecstasy of desirelessness and start relaxing from the existing desires. Please, don't create one more desire for desirelessness. Then you are adding a little more load. No, try to drop from what you have, instead of adding a little more stuff to what you have.

It is like this, when I tell these restless people to sit for a while doing nothing, they ask me, 'How do we sit doing nothing?' They create one more restless thought in their minds! I tell them, 'Arrey! Just sit, that's all!' That is how this desirelesness also is.

The experience of desirelessness will start happening in you when you simply relax from what desires you have. Start living with what you have, instead of living with what you don't have. This is the simple sutra or technique for this.

You cannot create desire for desirelessness and, if you create desire for desirelessness, you are creating one more desire. Please be very clear, just relax from the mind, from these very words, and you will drop into the silence. Just relax from the desires and you will drop into desirelessness. Never make the mistake of creating a desire for desirelessness.

Q) Is the first step for enlightenment meditation?

A) We can say this is the first and last step. When you start meditating, you enter into the space of enlightenment. When you stop meditating, you are enlightened. Meditation is the first and last step. Meditation is the alchemy to give enlightenment. It just gives you the ultimate experience which I call enlightenment. So starting to meditate is one of the best, the first and the last step for enlightenment.