Beyond EnlightenmentTalks given from 03/10/86 pm to 04/11/86 pmEnglish Discourse series32 ChaptersYear published: 1980Beyond EnlightenmentChapter #1Chapter title: Beyond Enlightenment is only beyondness3 October 1986 pm inArchive code: 8610035ShortTitle: ENLIGH01Audio: YesVideo: YesLength: 123 minsQuestion 1BELOVED OSHO,WHAT IS BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT?Maneesha, beyond enlightenment is only beyondness. Enlightenment is the last host. Beyond it, all boundaries disappear, all experiences disappear. Experience comes to its utmost in enlightenment; it is the very peak of all that is beautiful, of all that is immortal, of all that is blissful - but it is an experience. Beyond enlightenment there is no experience at all, because the experiencer has disappeared. Enlightenment is not only the peak of experience, it is also the finest definition of your being. Beyond it, there is only nothingness; you will not come again to a point which has to be transcended.Experience, the experiencer, enlightenment - all have been left behind. You are part of the tremendous nothingness that is infinite. This is the nothingness out of which the whole existence comes, the womb; and this is the nothingness in which all the existence disappears.Science has something parallel; there is bound to be something parallel. The spiritual experience is of the interior world, and science is the exploration of the exterior. But both are wings of the same existence - the inwardness and the outwardness - they always have similar points.Scientists have come to a strange conclusion in this century, that a few stars suddenly disappear. and stars are not small things; they are not so small as they look to you. They look small because they are so far away, millions of light years away, but they are huge.Our sun is a star, but of a mediocre size, medium size. In comparison to the earth it is vast, but in comparison to other stars it is a small, medium-sized star. There are stars which are a thousand times bigger than the sun.And in this century, for the first time we had the instruments of observation and we were very much puzzled: suddenly a star disappears, not even leaving a trace behind of where it has gone. Such a huge phenomenon, and not even footprints - in what direction has it gone? It has just moved simply into nothingness. This was happening continually.It took almost twenty years to figure out this new phenomenon: that in existence there are black holes. You cannot see them, but they have tremendous gravitation. Even the biggest star, if it comes within their radius of magnetism, will be pulled in. And once it is pulled into a black hole, it disappears. It is the ultimate death. We can only see the effect; we cannot see the black hole, we only see that one star is disappearing.After the black hole was almost an established theory, scientists started thinking that there must be something like a white hole - there has to be. If it is possible that in a certain gravitation, magnetic force, a big star simply disappears out of existence. We have been aware that every day stars are born. From where are they coming? - nobody has asked it before.In fact, birth we always take for granted; nobody asks from where the babies are coming.Death we never accept, because we are so much afraid of it.There is not a single philosophy in the whole history of man which thinks about where the babies come from, but there are philosophies and philosophies thinking about what is dead, where people go on disappearing to, what happens after death.In my whole life I have come across millions of people, and not a single person has asked what happens before birth - and thousands have asked what happens after death. I have always been thinking, why is birth taken without any question? Why is death not taken in the same way?We were aware for centuries, almost three centuries, that stars are being born every day - big stars, huge stars - and nobody raised the question, From where are these stars coming? But when we came to know about the black holes and we saw the stars disappearing, then the second question became almost an absolute necessity. If black holes can take stars into nothingness, then there must be something like white holes where things. stars come out of nothingness.I am reminded. Mulla Nasruddin had applied for a post on a ship. He was interviewed. The captain and the high officials of the ship were sitting in a room. Mulla entered. The captain asked, If the seas are in a turmoil, winds are strong, waves are huge and mountainous, what are you going to do to save the ship? It is tossed from here to there.Mulla Nasruddin said, It is not much of a problem: I will just drop a huge anchor to keep the ship stable against the winds, against the waves. It is not much of a problem.The captain again said, Suppose another mountainous wave comes and the ship is going to be drowned; what are you going to do?He said, Nothing - another