Osho,
It is said that when Buddha achieved enlightenment the whole universe became blissful – flowers showered from the sky, deities began to dance around him. Indra, himself, the king of all the devas, came down with folded palms and surrendered at Buddha’s feet. Trees began to flower out of season – the whole existence became a celebration.
Although the story around Buddha’s enlightenment is just poetry, I feel that existence must have enjoyed, and still rejoices much more in your enlightenment. It seems to me that in you all the awakened beings of the past are showering wisdom, love and compassion on this thirsty, agonized planet in a last dramatic effort.
Osho, what happened when you became enlightened?

The happening of enlightenment cannot be described in prose. Prose is too mundane. And the happening of enlightenment is too poetic.

It is the ultimate romance in existence.

The problem is how to put the wordless happening into words.

No trees blossom out of season. No flowers are showered from the sky. No deities dance around the enlightened one. But still, all these are true. It is as if trees blossomed out of season. Remember “as if”; as if gods danced around the enlightened one, as if the whole existence became a celebration.

It becomes a celebration, but it is so silent and so peaceful; and it is so far away from language that to say it we have to use fictitious phenomena. In other words, trees should have blossomed out of season – although they did not; flowers should have showered – but they did not.

You have to understand the poetic way of saying that whenever somebody becomes enlightened it is not only his enlightenment – because he has disappeared, that’s why there is enlightenment – it spreads all over existence, it is being felt through every fiber of life.

And with each single individual becoming enlightened, the whole level of consciousness of humanity goes a little higher. Whatever man is today, it is not due to his own effort; the credit goes to those few enlightened people around the world. They can be counted on fingers. But each disappearing, becoming pure light, has given a tremendous push to the whole sleeping humanity towards a better state of consciousness.

Wherever we are, we owe tremendously to people we don’t even know.

But with poetry there is a difficulty. One difficulty is, if you explain it, it becomes prose; it loses its poetic quality. Secondly, the believers, the faithful, think that it is not poetry; whatever is said did actually happen, it is history – not fiction but factuality. They get angry if you call it poetry – although poetry is a far higher expression than prose.

And this kind of poetry has been used for all enlightened people around the world.

It happened, the first time I had come to Bombay – it must have been in 1960 – to speak at the birthday celebrations of Mahavira. And Bombay is the stronghold of the Jainas.

I was absolutely unknown to them.