To live now is to be enlightened, to live here is to be enlightened, to be a lily is to be enlightened this very moment! Don’t think about what I am saying. Don’t think about it, just be here. This is the taste of enlightenment. Once you have tasted it, you will want to taste it more and more.

Don’t make a goal out of it; it is not a goal, it is the most ordinary state of consciousness. It is nothing extraordinary; it is nothing special. Trees are enlightened and the birds are enlightened, and rocks are enlightened, and the sun and the moon are enlightened. Only man is not, because only man thinks and goes on missing.

The moment you realize that you are missing because you are brooding too much, then small glimpses start happening. Small gaps in the traffic of the mind, small gaps when there is no traffic: those are the moments of meditation. They can happen anywhere.

Yes, in your country too! So, no need to be worried – you need not be in India. India has no copyright on enlightenment: it is not patented yet, it cannot be patented. You can be enlightened anywhere. You can be enlightened remaining a husband, a father, a mother, a wife. You can be enlightened as an engineer, as a doctor, as a carpenter, as a vagabond – even as a hippie. You can be enlightened anywhere.

Enlightenment is not something you have to work for, to strive for. It is something that you have to relax for – not strive, but relax. Relax, and this moment you are enlightened. Many times you will become enlightened, and many times you will become unenlightened again, just because of the old habit.

You say, “I am surprised to see so many people around who seem to have that desire.” If they have that desire, they will never become enlightened. Either: you can have the desire, or you can have enlightenment; you can’t have both. Either: you can eat the cake, or you can have it; you can’t do both. If you have a desire for enlightenment, then enlightenment is never going to happen to you – never, never – because desiring is what prevents it, so enlightenment cannot be desired; that will be a contradiction in terms.

Either: you are enlightened or you are not, it is as simple as that. Enlightenment is not caused by anything, it is your nature. Thus, it is not a question of making a great endeavor. It is not an enterprise; you need not plan for it. It is already the case!

That is Atisha’s first preliminary: Truth is.

Enlightenment is. It is as much as the sunlight showering all around, but you can remain with closed eyes, and you are in a dark night although the sun is showering everywhere. Open your eyes and the night disappears and there is no darkness. Even when you were thinking there was darkness, there was not. It was a very private affair, idiotic; it was something eccentric that you were doing.