The more responsible you become, the more alert; the more alert you become, the more responsible. They will go hand in hand.

The growth movement is a gradual process of enlightenment. What I am saying is not a process but a metanoia, a metamorphosis, a transformation, a sudden transformation. if you understand me, in a single moment, like lightning, you can become enlightened. But if you don’t understand me, then you will have to crawl slowly through group methods, meditations, prayers, Yoga, Tantra, Tao…you will have to move slowly, slowly. Either you become enlightened instantly, this moment, or you have to grow into it slowly, slowly. The growth movement is a movement for growth; growth can only be gradual.

What I am teaching to you is sudden enlightenment. It needs no time; not even a single moment is needed. Listen to me! and in this very moment…because what I am saying or what I am trying to say is that you are already enlightened. You need not be enlightened. You have simply forgotten; it is a kind of forgetfulness. Not that you have to become – you are that. Just a recognition, just a turning in, just a deep look inside yourself…and you will start laughing. You have always been there! You had never left in the first place.

Enlightenment is your nature.

But there are two types of people and you cannot do anything about your type. Either like a Hui Neng, listening to the four lines of the Diamond Sutra, you become enlightened. Now, you cannot ask how to become Hui Neng; that is not possible. Either you are or you are not; there is no more to it.

Hearing about Hui Neng, down the centuries, many people have been cramming the Diamond Sutra, particularly those four lines. Day in, day out, people have been repeating them. “If Hui Neng can become enlightened just by hearing four lines of the Diamond Sutra, then why can’t I?” But you go on repeating – the more you repeat, the more unenlightened you will be. It can’t happen that way! You are not a Hui Neng; things are finished there.

With sudden enlightenment that is the problem: either it happens or it doesn’t happen. You cannot do anything about it. It is beyond you. The bhaktas have called it the grace of God – as if it comes from Him, it is a gift; you need not be worthy of it. Only one person in thousands, or even in millions, is capable of that. All the remaining ones have to move slowly, have to move gradually.