One can understand preserving the Koran, The Gita, The Bible, The Torah; there is something written in them, something significant, meaningful. But the Sufis have been insisting on preserving a book in which nothing is written. And it is given only by the master to the succeeding disciple, to the chief disciple, who is going to be the next master. Perhaps these people were trying their hardest to say something without words. At least they made the effort.
The same has been the situation of all those one percent of mystics around the world: they have to find some vehicle to express that which is inexpressible. The word enlightenment is also invented by the scholars – scholars have been doing great work. And mystics have to use it knowing perfectly well that the experience has nothing to do with the light you are acquainted with.
The enlightenment that is being described by the word is beyond light and darkness, because it is beyond duality. You cannot call it darkness, you cannot call it light, and yet it has the qualities of both.
In light you can see. The enlightened person has eyes that you don’t have. He can see things the way you can never see. And you can try to understand it: A painter sees a painting; you also see it. As far as colors are concerned, your eyes reflect the same colors as the painter’s eyes reflect; but do you think you are seeing the same painting as the painter? No, that is not possible, because to see a painting like Picasso’s one needs that kind of genius. It is not in the paints, it is the whole organic unity of all those paints. Those paints are only parts.
It is as if you take a car apart. Every part is separated; all over the ground you spread it, and you see it. You are seeing the car, but is it the car that you are seeing? no, only parts. When you see a Picasso painting you are seeing it in the same way as the car: you just see fragments, pieces.
You don’t have the genius to make a whole out of it, where all those colors lose their individuality and start functioning in a harmony. To see that harmony is to see the painting. It has nothing to do with the colors, nothing to do with the canvas, nothing to do with the frame. The frame may be golden, it doesn’t matter. The question is of the organic harmony. But for that you need a totally different kind of eye – just as a musician needs a different kind of ear.
But these are small things compared to enlightenment. I am just taking examples to indicate something which is beyond examples. It has some quality which happens in light, not of light – mind you well. It has some quality which happens in light. If the lights are put off, what disappears? Your capacity to see disappears.
When enlightenment happens, a certain capacity to see happens, which has been completely unconscious within you. It is fully ready to function any moment, but you won’t even turn to look at it. Just your very turning will turn the switch on. But it is not enlightenment. Let me repeat: enlightenment is not enlightenment, not just enlightenment. It is a way of saying that you attain to a certain capacity of seeing, knowing.