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Everyone is born enlightened.

Everyone is born absolutely innocent, absolutely pure, absolutely empty. But that innocence, that purity, that emptiness, is bound to be lost because it is unconscious. One has to regain it; one has to gain it consciously.

That is the only difference between an ordinary person and the enlightened one.

The ordinary person came with the same potential, has the same potential still, but he has not claimed it yet. The enlightened one has lost it and claimed it back.

The ordinary person is in a state of paradise lost and the enlightened person is in the state of paradise regained. But you can gain it any moment, it is up to you.

Nobody can prevent you from becoming enlightened.

It is not a question of any particular talent. Not everybody is a musician and not everybody can be a musician; that is a question of talent. Only a few are musicians and real musicians are born musicians. You can learn the technique; if you go on and on practicing music, sooner or later you will be able to play, but you will still not be a musician. You will only be a technician – one who knows how to play but has no inspiration, one who is not really in tune with the music of existence. Music is not flowing through you naturally, spontaneously.

Not everybody can be a poet and not everybody can be a scientist or mathematician; these are talents. But enlightenment is not a question of talent. Everybody is enlightened; to be alive is enough. Life itself is the only need, the only requirement.

If you are not dead you can still become enlightened. If you are dead, then of course wait for the next round, but nobody is so dead. People are ninety-nine percent dead, but even if you are one percent alive that is enough. That much fire is enough; it can be kindled, it can be helped. It can be used to create, to trigger more fire in you.

The difference between the enlightened one and the ordinary person is not one of talent.

This is the first thing to be remembered, because many people think that it is a question of talent. “A Jesus is talented, a Buddha is talented; we are not so talented. How can we become enlightened?”

No, it is not a question of talent at all. You cannot become a Michelangelo and you cannot become a Shakespeare unless you are born one, but you can become a Christ, a Buddha.

Everybody is entitled to it, it is everybody’s birthright, but you will have to reclaim it. The effort has to be made consciously. You have lost it simply because you were unconscious, and if you remain unconscious, then the difference will remain.

The difference is only of unconsciousness.

Buddha is as ordinary as you are, but he is full of awareness in his ordinariness. Because of awareness his ordinariness becomes luminous.

He lives the same ordinary life, remember.

That is another illusion that people are carrying within themselves: that a Buddha has to be extraordinary, that a Jesus has to walk on water. You cannot walk on water, so how can you be a Jesus? A buddha has to be special, from the very beginning.

The stories say that before Buddha was born his mother had a few dreams. Those dreams are absolutely necessary. If the mother has not had those dreams before the birth, then the person cannot be a buddha. Now this is sheer stupidity! Joining Buddha with the dreams of his mother is sheer nonsense, there cannot be a more stupid idea.

And what kind of dreams?

Jainas have different dreams. Before Mahavira is born, the mother has a few dreams. She sees a white elephant, and that is a must. Every tirthankara, every prophet of the Jainas, before he is born has to be preceded by a dream of the mother of a white elephant, as if the son is going to be a white elephant.

Buddha’s mother has to see a few dreams, a series of dreams. These are just stories, fictitious, created by the followers afterward. The story is that the mother of a buddha has to die immediately when he is born, she cannot live. How can she live after such a great phenomenon? It is so vast and so big, the experience is such that it is bigger than death, she simply disappears.

But Mahavira’s mother lives, Jesus’ mother lives; they didn’t have that idea there. But they have other ideas: when Jesus is born he has to be born to a virgin mother.

Now people can go to absurdities, to the very extremes of absurdities, just to make one thing settled in your minds: that Jesus is special while you are ordinary.

Now where will you find a virgin mother? You have already missed. Next time maybe you try again to find a virgin mother, but unless you conspire with the Holy Ghost, it is impossible. How will you manage?

And then three wise men have to come and a star has to lead them. Now stars don’t do that at all, no star can do it. Stars go on their routes; they cannot lead the wise men from the East to the exact place where Jesus is born in a stable, in a poor man’s house. Stars can’t do that, that is impossible.

These fictions have been created just to give the idea that you are ordinary and these people are special.

My whole effort here is to proclaim to you that if they are special you are special, if you are ordinary they are ordinary. One thing is certain: you don’t belong to different categories, you belong to the same category.

The miracle is not walking on water, the miracle is not walking in fire; the miracle is waking up. That is the real miracle. All else is nonsense.

Wake up and you are a buddha. Wake up and you are enlightened.

And when you wake up it is not that you will become totally different from your ordinary self; you will be the same person but luminous. You will eat in the same way, but it will not be the same, there will be an intrinsic difference.

You will live in the old way, yet it will not be the old because you will be new. You will bring a new touch to everything and whatsoever you touch will start turning into gold, will start turning into something meaningful. Before it was meaningless, now it will have significance and meaning.

And it is time that you wake up.

The master cannot force you to wake up; the master can only create a situation in which a process can be triggered in you. And any situation can be helpful.

Lao Tzu became enlightened just by seeing a leaf, a dry leaf falling from a tree. As the leaf started falling toward the earth, he became enlightened. Now what happened?

Seeing the dead leaf falling on the wings of the wind, with no idea of its own, utterly relaxed, utterly surrendered to the winds, he had a glimpse. He must have been in a very vulnerable state. And from that very moment he became a dead leaf in the winds. He surrendered his ego, he surrendered his clinging, he surrendered his own ideas of what should be and should not be. He surrendered all his mind, he simply became a let-go.

And that’s how he became enlightened.

Anything can trigger the process. The master only creates a thousand and one situations. Who knows what situation is going to trigger the process?

Here you are going through hundreds of groups, doing all kinds of meditations, because nobody can predict in what moment, in what situation, what is going to trigger the process.

It has always happened in such a mysterious way, it is not a scientific phenomenon. It is not a question of cause and effect, otherwise things would have been easier. You heat the water to a hundred degrees and it becomes vapor. But it is not like that.

A few people evaporate at zero degrees, a few people evaporate at a hundred degrees, a few people evaporate at one thousand degrees. People are not matter; people are consciousness, people are freedom, so nobody knows what will trigger the process.

Not even the master can say, “This is going to trigger the process.” He can arrange all kinds of devices and he can wait patiently, lovingly, compassionately, prayerfully. And you have to move through all kinds of devices.

I am talking to you… Any word may trigger it, or maybe just a pause may trigger it, and suddenly the sleep is gone, the dreams have disappeared. You are born, spiritually born, twice-born. You have again become a child.

That’s what buddhahood is, that’s what enlightenment is.

You ask me, “Is there really no difference between an ordinary person and one who is enlightened?” There is no difference in the sense that both belong to the same world of consciousness. One is asleep, one is awake; hence the difference. But the difference is only peripheral, not central, not intrinsic, but accidental.

Respect the buddhas and that will teach you to respect yourself.

Respect the buddhas, but don’t condemn yourself. Love yourself because you are also carrying a buddha within you. You are also carrying a bud which is going to become a buddha.

Any moment, any day… It can be now, it can be here…