Consciousness is one. You cannot divide it in two. Consciousness is indivisible. You cannot say 'ordinary consciousness' and 'enlightened consciousness' — consciousness means enlightenment.

The ordinary person is not conscious, he is unconscious. He believes he is conscious — his very belief prevents him from becoming conscious. If an ill man believes he is healthy then there is no cure for him, no medicine, no remedy. If a man who knows nothing of love thinks he is a lover he will never know anything of love. The ordinary man lives in unconsciousness because he believes he is already conscious. He has be fooled himself, he has deceived himself.

Consciousness is always enlightenment. To be conscious means to be a Buddha. And the possibility exists in everybody. Yet people go on living in an unconscious way because they believe they are already conscious, so there is nothing to be done, there is nothing to be transformed to. They go on thinking this is all that they have. This is not even the beginning; the journey has not started. You are fast asleep. But you can have a dream-journey — you can go in your dream to the farthest corner of the earth, and you can go on believing that you are a traveler. And all the time you are asleep here now.

Here now you are asleep. That is what unconsciousness is. You may be conscious of the past — but the past is no more, so that consciousness is of absence. You may be conscious of the future, and the future is not yet. That consciousness is pseudo. The only consciousness is of here now, of this moment. If you are utterly here this moment, totally here this moment, then you are conscious. And in that very intensity you become a flame of light. A smokeless flame. That is what enlightenment is.

So please don't divide consciousness in two; it cannot be divided. Consciousness has one taste — of being aware. Consciousness knows no past, no future, no other time, no other world.

A great poet, Paul Eluard, has said: 'There is another world. But that other world is hidden in this.' That's true, that's exactly what is the case. God is, but not somewhere else — hidden in this moment.

Jesus says to his disciples: 'Look at the lilies in the field. They toil not, they think not of the morrow.' Visualize lilies in the field, and Jesus talking to his disciples, indicating those lilies. And he says, 'Even Solomon in all his glory was not attired like one of these.' What is the beauty of a poor lily flower? And what is the richness of a poor lily flower? It is utterly here now — it knows no other time and no other space. It knows no other world. Its intensity, its totality, its wholeness, makes it more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory.

Yes, even your greatest emperors are poor before a flower of the lily. The lily exists in the moment. The moment you exist in the moment, you are conscious. Consciousness is of the present; consciousness is a kind of presence. Otherwise you live like a robot, a machine. Obsessed with your habits, you go on repeating them again and again and again. And because they are mechanical they never satisfy you. So the wheel goes on moving. Unsatisfied, you desire a better future. Unsatisfied with the past, you project a future. But the future is projected out of the past — it is bound to be like it. Maybe a little bit different here and there, but not much. A modified thing, a little bit decorated, improved, but all the time in essence the same. Again you will be dissatisfied, and again you will project.

Man is in a deep discontent, and goes on projecting a paradise somewhere else. That paradise never comes; it cannot come. The paradise has already come, it is already here. Man has never left the Garden of Eden. What really happened when Adam ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: he fell asleep. And he started dreaming that he has been expelled, that he has been thrown out of the Garden of Eden, that God is angry, that he has betrayed. He started feeling guilty, he started feeling a sinner. And he created his own nightmare.

Otherwise, in fact, Adam has never for a single moment left the Garden of Eden. Because where can he go? This whole is the Garden of Eden, paradise is all over the place. It is God's world — where can God expel Adam? Where? There is no other world — expulsion is impossible. This is the only existence there is.

So my understanding of the Biblical parable is that Adam has fallen asleep, he has become unconscious. Knowledge proved to be a kind of poison. It is — knowledge always makes people unconscious. Because knowledge becomes content in their consciousness, and the content surrounds their consciousness like dust surrounds a mirror. And the more knowledge, the more dust. And one day the mirror is completely lost — there are layers and layers of dust and it is very difficult to search for the mirror.

And you are that Adam and that Eve. It is not something that happened in the past; it is not history, it is already happening. It has always been happening and it will always be happening. Collect knowledge, eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and you become unconscious.

Then what is the way to become conscious? Drop contents, drop thoughts, drop knowledge. Unburden yourself. Let your mind become empty, let your mind become no mind. And suddenly you will be surprised that you have never gone anywhere else, you have been in paradise.

That's what happened to Gautam Buddha. The day he became enlightened, do you know what were his first words he uttered? He said: 'Wonder! Wonder! I have always been this. Wonder! Wonder! The whole existence has become enlightened with me.' Two things he said: 'I am surprised! For what have I been seeking and searching? And I have been always that!' And the second thing, he was surprised that 'Everybody is seeking the same that I was seeking, and everybody is really enlightened.'

All beings are Buddhas from the very beginning. You had been a Buddha in the beginning, you are a Buddha in the middle, you will be a Buddha in the end. Buddhahood is essential. It is not something accidental that happens and then disappears, sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't happen. It is your inner nature. It is you.

You ask me: 'Is enlightened consciousness less spicy than ordinary consciousness?'

The first thing: There is no ordinary consciousness. Ordinary is unconsciousness. There is only one consciousness and that is enlightened consciousness. But to say 'enlightened consciousness' is repetitive, because both words mean the same — 'enlightened' and 'consciousness'. So there is no need to use two words, simply 'consciousness' is enough.

And certainly it is more spicy, because it is multi-dimensional. Unconsciousness is one-dimensional, unconsciousness is very narrow. Consciousness is openness, consciousness is wide. Consciousness is like the sky, it knows no boundaries. Naturally it is more spicy — absolutely spicy. Only a Buddha enjoys the world. Not you. You only dream about your enjoyment. Your enjoyment at the most is a kind of entertainment. You try to forget your miseries in your entertainments, and you call it enjoyment. Only Buddha knows what enjoyment is. It is not entertainment. Once you are aware, you see that you are blissful. Bliss comes as a shadow to awareness. Once you know who you are, you have all that you can dream, that you have ever dreamed. And more. Infinitely more.

Only those who have become awakened know the green of the trees and the red and the gold. And only those who have become awakened, they know the beauty of the oceans and the sand and the sun. Only those who have become awakened, they know the immense joy of love, of being related, of communication, of sharing. Only those who have become awakened know what benediction this existence is. They know. Others only search, seek, grope in the darkness of their being.

But the question is relevant, for a certain reason. Down the ages, many religions have existed on the earth — invented by man, invented in his unconsciousness, invented according to his misery, invented out of misery. And they have been trying to depict the ultimate in consciousness as if it is dull, dead, no spice at all in it, no joy in it. Christians say that Jesus never laughed. Just ridiculous. If Jesus cannot laugh then who else? Do you think you can laugh? Yes, sometimes you laugh, but your laughter is shallow. It is at the most on the lips, or if it goes very deep it goes to the throat. It does not come from the heart, it does not come from your guts, it does not come from your core. It is just there — superficial, painted. It is shallow.

Only Jesus can laugh. And when Jesus laughs he is laughter — not that he laughs. When you laugh you laugh. When Jesus laughs he is laughter. When you dance you dance. When Jesus dances he is dance. When you love you love. When I love I am simply love. I don't exist apart from it, otherwise there will be a division, split. When you laugh you are standing aloof and laughing — laughing is an act, your total being is not involved in it.

And Christians say a very foolish thing, that Jesus never laughed. Why do they say it? Out of their miseries, out of their anguish, out of their meaninglessness, they have depicted Jesus sad, gloomy, serious, grave. And because of this your churches have become graveyards; the joy of life no more exists there. And because of this your scriptures have become like you find in museums — a snake in alcohol. It will live long. But a snake on the grass alive in the sun, on the rock, resting in the afternoon, taking a nap, a snake moving up on a tree or swinging with the branches of a tree, a snake alive. And a snake in the museum, in the hospital, in the science lab, in alcohol. The alcohol snake, or call it the alcoholic snake, will live long, because it is dead. The real snake, the alive snake, will not live long, because it is alive — death will be coming. But for the alcoholic snake there is no death.

Jesus died. He was a flower — bloomed in the morning, by the evening gone. But the Christ invented by the Christians, lives. It is an alcoholic snake, bottled, a museum-piece. It can live for ever and for ever. Your scriptures are dead; they are like butterflies pinned. You can collect butterflies and go on pinning them — they look like butterflies, they are not. Because what is a butterfly if it cannot have freedom, if it is not alive, if it is not roaming from one flower to another, if it is not a vagabond on the wings — what is it? It is nothing. It is a corpse.

So are your Bibles, so are your Vedas. They are invented things. Jesus, the real Jesus, is just an excuse. And you have imposed upon the real Jesus your own Jesus who never laughs. Jesus was a totally different kind of man. I cannot imagine that he will not laugh. He was moving with beautiful people. He was not moving with saints, remember, he was moving with beautiful people. Drunkards and gamblers and prostitutes too. He was moving with real people, authentic people. He was not moving with pseudo saints , he was moving with sinners.

Saints are pinned butterflies. Sinners are alive — a snake resting on the rock in the afternoon sun. Sinners sometimes can become saints, but then their sainthood has a totally different quality to it. They cannot belong to any church, they cannot belong to any sect. They cannot belong — how can a saint belong? The saint is like a fragrance, free, moving in the winds — he cannot belong. Jesus never belonged to anybody. That's why Jews were angry with him — they wanted him to belong.

Real saints will not be recognized as saints, no church will sanctify them as saints. And the saints that are sanctified by the church are really bogus, mumbo-jumbo, false, artificial, synthetic, plastic saints. Yes, they don't laugh, that's true. But Jesus is not that kind of saint. He laughs, he drinks, he eats well, he loves. He was a true man of the earth, very earthly, rooted in the earth.

And the earth is not against the sky. Observe the trees — the tree can go higher in the sky only if it goes deeper in the earth. And so is the rule, so is the law. A man who is deeply rooted in the earth can go deeply in God — not otherwise. A man who can laugh and enjoy and be merry, can pray. His roots in the earth will give him enough nourishment to pray. He will be grateful — only then he can pray.

God is significant only when it comes out of your gratefulness. But how can you be grateful if you cannot even laugh? Churches have become graveyards.

So your question is relevant. You may be afraid if you become enlightened your life will not be so spicy. I promise you, it will be more spicy. Right now you are only dreaming about joys. They are not really there, not really. Just in your fantasy they exist.

I promise you real joys, real love, authenticity. And whenever a man is authentic he is not just wise. The just wise are not wise enough. The really wise man — I call him the 'other-wise' — the really wise man has always enough courage to be fool around a little bit, to fool around. The real wisdom has something of foolishness in it always. And so has the real fool something of wisdom in him. Because the real man is always a meeting of the opposites. The meeting of the earth and the sky, the meeting of summer and winter, the meeting of day and night, the meeting of wisdom and foolishness.

Foolishness is also not all wrong. It has something beautiful in it — it has playfulness in it, it has non seriousness in it. It is non-ambitious, it is innocent. So the real wise man has something of foolishness in him — it is always there, it makes his life spicy. The really silent man has a song to sing. Hence this Hakuin's Song of Meditation.

You don't join meditation and song together in your mind. Song of meditation? Song of love is okay, but song of meditation? Solomon's song is okay, but song of meditation? Meditation seems to be non-singing, meditation seems to be serious, meditation seems to be silent. And song? Song is not silent, song is expressive, jubilant, dancing. But the real meditation always has a song to sing, a dance to dance. It is spicy.

That's why so many people are puzzled here. Particularly religious people, because they are the least religious — they are very much puzzled here. Meditation and dance, sannyas and love, all go together.

I am trying to create a meeting of the opposites. And whenever two opposites meet, there is great bliss. When two opposites meet, only then there is bliss. A man meets a woman and there is orgasm and there is joy. And life meets death and there is great ecstasy, if you know how to allow it. The dying moment is the greatest ecstatic moment — if you know how to allow it, if you know how to relax into it, how to surrender to it.

Here, love will meet with renunciation. Here, meditation will meet with prayer. Here, silence and sound will be together. Silence alone is poor, so is sound alone. Sound alone is noise, silence alone is death. When silence and sound meet, there is music. Music is the meeting of silence and sound. There is a rhythm between sound and silence, hence the music. The great music always contains silence in it and sound. And the great meditation also contains sound in it and silence.

Don't be afraid. I am not teaching you a religion which is life-negative. I am teaching a religion which is absolutely life-affirmative. Life is God.