Is enlightenment only a human phenomenon or can trees and animals also be enlightened? - by Osho

"The spring of life is available to everybody; otherwise how can you live?
Your life is continuously being nourished by the spring of life. The trees are nourished by the spring of life, the flowers blossom ... but the juice comes from the spring of life. The whole existence is nothing but a manifestation of the springs of life.

But trees cannot become enlightened -- neither can mountains or oceans; neither can animals or birds. They all have the same source of life that you have. But man has a prerogative, a privilege, that he can become aware of his spring of life. This awareness is not possible in any other form in existence. It is man's grandeur, it is his dignity.

Existence has given him the most precious opportunity. If he can create awareness, consciousness, more alertness, then his spring of life explodes into a new dimension. The dimension of life becomes the dimension of light, of knowing -- knowing the deepest roots of our being in eternity. And the moment we know our roots are eternal, we know our flowers are also going to be eternal. Enlightenment is a flowering.

The springs of life are seeds; enlightenment is a flower. The seed has come to its ultimate expression -- there is no further to go. Springs of life are the lowest rung of the ladder, and enlightenment is the highest rung of the ladder, although the ladder is the same. The change comes slowly, as you become more aware of who you are, of what life is -- not intellectually, not by reading through scriptures, but by reading the only holy scripture: your own being, and bringing your potential to its realization. So that which was hidden in the seed becomes an explosion in the flower, in the fragrance.

That fragrance is enlightenment. It comes from the sources of life, but it is not synonymous with it. The seed is not synonymous with the flower, although the flower comes from the seed. The seed is the womb, but the flower -- although connected with the seed, with the womb -- is a totally new experience. Awareness ordinarily is objective. You know others, you know the world, you know the faraway stars.

The moment awareness turns inwards and starts knowing itself -- in other words, the moment awareness is the object of its own knowing -- enlightenment blossoms with all its beauty, with all its immortal glory.
Life is accepted by the scientist, but he is not yet capable of accepting the possibility of enlightenment. Life is accepted by the atheist, but he is also not capable of comprehending the ultimate explosion.

Just as for millennia we had no idea that matter is made of small atoms, which are not visible to the eyes ... they are so small that if you put one atom upon another atom, and then go on putting one on top of another, you will need one hundred thousand atoms, and then they will be as thick as a human hair. Such a small atom, one hundred thousand times thinner than a human hair, when it explodes, releases so much energy that a city like Hiroshima or Nagasaki disappears within seconds -- evaporates.

I have seen a picture sent by a friend from Japan ... just looking at the picture, one feels so sad about humanity, so hopeless. The picture is of a small girl, maybe nine years old. She is going from the ground floor to the first story with her bag and books -- perhaps to do her homework before she goes to sleep. She is just in the middle of the staircase when the atom bomb falls on Hiroshima.

Just a small atom exploding creates so much energy ... you can use it for destruction or you can use it for some creative purpose. Right now the scientists say we have come so far from Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- our new nuclear weapons are so great in their energy -- that the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima look like children's toys. If matter, in its smallest particle, contains so much energy, can you conceive how much energy may be available in the living cell of human beings?

Enlightenment is the explosion of a living cell. Certainly it is not destructive at all, but it transforms the whole man. In that way, it is destructive. It destroys the old man, it destroys the night, it destroys all that was constituting your personality: your jealousy, your anger, your hate, your lust, your greed -- all that is simply finished in a single moment. And the same energy that was involved in jealousy, hate, greed, ambition, and a thousand and one desires, is changed into totally new forms of energy: love, silence, peace, compassion, wisdom -- all that is the basic search of life itself. Life in itself is dormant, it is fast asleep.

Enlightenment is absolutely awake. But it is the same energy that was asleep that becomes awake. So they are not synonymous, but they are two extremes of the same energy. But this, if taken as an intellectual understanding, is not going to help you in any way. It has to become your own experience. You have to see that light. You have to see that explosion within your own being. You have to see the darkness disappearing. You have to see the new dawn of a new life -- a life of grace and gratitude, a life of beauty and blessings."


Osho, excerpted from: The New Dawn, Chapter 16