Osho,
This morning when you were talking about missing the master, I felt a stubborn determination not to miss you. I’m going to sit here till I get enlightened – if it takes forever!

Then you will miss absolutely. enlightenment is not something that you can get by your stubbornness. That is the barrier! It comes when you are vulnerable. It comes when you are not even aware of it. It comes when you are not even desiring it. It takes you always unawares. It comes so silently that you cannot hear the sound of its footsteps.

And it never comes when you are looking directly for it. It comes indirectly. You are singing a song, and you are lost in the song…and it is there. You were not thinking of it! You were absorbed in the song. Or you were dancing, and you had abandoned yourself in the dance…and it is there. Or you were painting, or working in the field, or just sitting silently doing nothing…and it is there.

It always comes when you are not directly looking at it. It comes indirectly. It is a very subtle and delicate phenomenon. The more stubbornly you look for it, the more it is certain that you will miss it.

Be here with me! just be here with me – with no idea of enlightenment. It is going to happen. But it is not going to happen according to you. You cannot manipulate it. You cannot be in control of it. It happens when it happens. It comes out of the blue. It is not caused by you. If it is caused by you, and your efforts, and your will, then it will be smaller than you. It is bigger than you.

When it comes, it is not like the feeling when a dewdrop falls into the ocean. No. On the contrary, it is the feeling as if the ocean has fallen into the dewdrop. The whole sky falls into you.

If you are stubbornly waiting for it, you are too hard. There is no space in you. You are too tense. The very desire for it is enough of a barrier. One has to forget all about it. One has to forget so deeply that the very word becomes irrelevant, and one day one is surprised – it has come. The guest has come, uninvited. You say: “This morning when you were talking about missing the master, I felt a stubborn determination not to miss you.” This stubborn determination comes from your will, from your ego. And these are the barriers! Who is preventing your enlightenment? Nobody except yourself. Otherwise, you are a buddha from the very beginning. How have you missed what has always been yours? How do you go on missing it? By your search you go on missing it.

But it happens: when I am saying, “Don’t miss a master,” a stubborn desire can arise in you that “I am not going to miss. I will put all my effort and all my energy into not missing” – and you have missed. My words have to be understood, not in the dictionary sense – you have to be very sympathetic with me.