For example: Mahavira became enlightened; he became naked. Now, anybody can stand naked; there is nothing special about it. Any madman can do that. And you can go to visit a nudist club – they are not all Mahaviras. Buddha became enlightened; he was sitting in a particular posture, the lotus posture. You can sit in a lotus posture. If you are Eastern, then it is very simple; if you are Western, then six months’ practice, but that’s all. You can sit in a lotus posture, but that will not make you a Buddha. You can imitate very easily; that’s how imitators are all over the world. Go and see a Jaina monk: he imitates perfectly, but nothing else is there.

Enlightenment is always new, fresh – it is not an imitation, it is not a carbon copy; it is always original. So I cannot tell you exactly how he will behave, but I can tell you how to imbibe. If there is somebody who has something of the unknown around him – a mystique – then, how to imbibe? Drop all considerations, all mental considerations. Don’t ask that he should be ‘like this’; just be with him. Just sit with him in silence. Be open to him.

If he has become enlightened, suddenly you will see a throb within you that you have never known before, your energy will start rising. You will see a great silence arising in you, and a great bliss, drop by drop, reaching your innermost core of being. An enlightened person, if allowed to enter into you, will give you self-evident proofs. But those are not intellectual proofs; they are not arguments of mind. He argues with his whole being. His argument is that of his presence – so allow his presence and don’t carry any criterion.

If you are a Jaina you will miss Buddha; if you are a Jaina you will miss Krishna; if you are a Jaina you will miss Christ. If you are a Christian you will miss Mahavira. You will carry an idea, a fixed pattern. Don’t carry any fixed pattern. If you feel that somebody is there who is livelier than you, more radiant than you, more understanding than you, more compassion overflowing from his being, then just be in his presence.

That’s what we call satsang: just be in his presence. If he has arrived, you will feel a sudden pull in your being – you are being pulled towards some unknown center. And you will feel tremendous beauty, bliss. blessings showering on you. That will be the only criterion; but for that you have to be ready.

Ordinarily, people ask, “Give us some objective criterion.” There is none. The criterion can only be if you are open. What is the criterion to know whether this flower is a rose or not? The only criterion is to open your eyes, open your nostrils, smell it, let it reach your being; only that will reveal. But if you don’t have eyes and you have lost your sense of smell, then it will be very, very difficult for you to know whether it is a rose or something else. It may be just a plastic rose or a paper rose; it can deceive you.

So I will not give you any description of the objective reality, of what happens – it is individual, unique, always different, never the same – but I can give you a subjective way to feel.

I have heard….