Disciplehood
The Many Teaches of Hassan
This osho discourse is related to this card;
especially the talk which starts from one star “＊”.
The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1 : chapter 6
＊ ＊ ＊
The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1
chapter 6
Born with Joy
question 2
The second question
Question 2
YOU HAD NO MASTER.
NO BUDDHA HAS A MASTER.
SOMETIMES I THINK THAT CHOOSING A MASTER MEANS TO PREVENT ONE’S OWN ENLIGHTENMENT.
I MEAN, THE NEED OF ONE’S OWN WAY,
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF GUIDANCE.
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU MEAN.
Andreas, I never asked anybody any such question.
To ask the question is to search for guidance, is to seek for guidance.
A question is always a need for an answer from somebody else.
If you have questions to ask,
you will have to choose a Master.
A Master is one who is ready to answer you.
A disciple is one who is not only asking from curiosity
but is ready to stake his whole being on his questioning,
is ready to transform his life according to the answer given.
If you really ask the question you have already become a disciple.
That is the meaning of being a disciple:
to ask.
Jesus says,
’Ask, and it shall be given to you.
Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.
Seek, and ye shall find.’
’Ask, and it shall be given unto you...’
Asking is the beginning of disciplehood.
And unless you are a disciple,
the Master will not take much note of you,
because many come just as curiosity seekers
– out of curiosity but not really ready to inquire.
Inquiry needs commitment,
inquiry needs involvement,
inquiry is risky, dangerous.
It is not only intellectual,
it is existential.
So if you really want to ask,
remember, let me make you alert,
you are already becoming a disciple.
And if you think that to choose a Master is to prevent one’s enlightenment,
please don’t ask questions.
And I was surprised,
because Andreas has asked at least seven questions today.
The largest number of questions is from him.
Secondly, you say, ’You had no Master.’
＊
That is true, I had no Master.
That does not mean that I was not a disciple.
I accepted the whole existence as my Master.
It needs more courage to accept the whole existence as your Master.
If you cannot accept even a single man as your Master,
how can you accept the whole existence as your Master
– the trees and rocks and the rivers and the clouds?
If you cannot love a single human being,
how can you love the whole?
It is true I had no Master,
but that does not mean that I was not a disciple.
My disciplehood was a greater involvement than your disciplehood is.
I trusted the clouds
– which is very difficult.
I trusted the trees
– which is almost impossible.
I trusted existence as such.
If that is possible then you need not have any Master in particular,
because then everything is your Master.
When a great Sufi mystic, Hassan, was dying,
somebody asked,
’Hassan, who was your Master?’
He said,
’Now it is too late to ask.
Time is short, I am dying.’
But the inquirer asked,
’You can simply say the name.
You are still alive,
you are still breathing and talking,
you can simply tell me the name.’
He said,
’It will be difficult
because I had thousands of Masters.
If I just relate their names it will take months and years.
It is too late.
But three Masters I will certainly tell you about.
’One was a thief.
Once I got lost in the desert,
and when I reached the village it was very late.
Half the night was already gone;
shops were closed,
caravanserais were closed.
There was not a single human being on the roads.
I searched for somebody to inquire of.
I found one man who was trying to make a hole in the wall of a house.
I asked him where I could stay,
and he said,
”I am a thief,
and you look like a Sufi mystic to me.”’
His robe, his aura.
’And the thief said,
”Right now it will be very difficult to find any place to stay,
but you can come to my home.
You can stay with me
– if you can stay with a thief.” ’
Hassan said,
’I hesitated a little bit.
Then I remembered.
If the thief is not afraid of a Sufi,
then why should the Sufi be afraid of a thief?
In fact, he should be afraid of me.
So I said,
”Yes, I will come.”
And I went, and I stayed with the thief.
And the man was so lovely, so beautiful,
I stayed for one month!
And each night he would say to me,
”Now I am going to my work.
You rest, you pray, you do your work.”
And when he would come back I would ask,
”Could you get anything?”
He said,
”Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again.”
And he was never in a state of hopelessness.
’For one month continuously he came empty-handed,
but he was always happy.
And he said,
”I will try tomorrow.
God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen.
And you also pray for me.
At least you can say to God,
’Help this poor man.’”
And then Hassan said,
’When I was meditating and meditating for years on end,
nothing was happening,
and many times the moment came when I was so desperate,
so hopeless that I thought to stop all this nonsense.
There is no God,
and all this prayer is just madness,
all this meditation is false
– and suddenly I would remember the thief who would say every night,
”God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen.”
’So I tried one day more.
If the thief was so hopeful, with such hope and trust,
I should try at least one day more.
And many times it happened,
but the thief and the memory of him helped me to wait one day more.
And one day, it happened, it DID happen!
I bowed down.
I was thousands of miles away from the thief and his house,
but I bowed down in his direction.
He was my first Master.
’And my second Master was a dog.
I was thirsty and I was going towards the river,
and a dog came.
He was also thirsty.
He looked into the river,
he saw another dog there – his own image –
and became afraid.
He barked and the other dog barked, too.
But his thirst was so much that he would hesitate and go back.
He would come again and look into the water and find the dog there.
But the thirst was so much that he suddenly jumped into the water,
and the image disappeared.
He drank the water,
he swam in the water
– it was a hot summer.
And I was watching.
I knew that a message had come to me from God.
One has to jump in spite of all fears.
’When I was on the verge of jumping into the unknown,
the same fear was there.
I would go to the very edge, hesitate, and come back.
And I would remember the dog.
If the dog could manage, why not I?
And then one day I jumped into the unknown.
I disappeared and only the unknown was left behind.
The dog was my second Master.
’And the third Master was a small child.
I entered into a town and a small child was bringing a candle,
a lit candle, hiding it in his hands and going to the mosque to put the candle there.
Just joking, I asked the boy,
”Have you lit the candle yourself?”
He said,
”Yes, sir.”
And I asked, jokingly,
”Can you tell me from where the light came?
There was a moment when the candle was unlit,
then there was a moment when the candle was lit,
can you show me the source from which the light came?
And you have lit it,
so you must have seen the light coming
– from where?”
And the boy laughed and blew out the candle, and said,
”Now you have seen the light going,
where has it gone?
You tell me!”
And my ego was shattered,
and my whole knowledge was shattered.
And that moment I felt my own stupidity.
Since then I dropped all knowledgeability.’
Hassan talked about three Masters.
And he said,
’There have been many,
and no time is left for me to talk about them all.’
Yes, this is true, I had no Master
because I had millions of Masters.
I have learnt from every possible source.
If you can be that kind of disciple you need not have a Master.
But remember,
it is not that you do not have a Master.
Either you choose one or you choose all,
but in any case you have to be a disciple.
To be a disciple is a must on the path.
What does it mean to be a disciple?
It means to be able to learn,
to be available to learn,
to be vulnerable to existence.
What actually happens when you choose a Master?
You start learning how to learn.
And with one Master,
slowly slowly you get in tune,
and slowly slowly you see the point that in the same way you can get in tune with the whole existence.
The Master is just a miniature of the whole.
Coming closer to the Master you start becoming aware of the beatitude,
of closeness,
of love,
of intimacy,
of involvement,
of commitment.
And slowly slowly you see the point that
if just being so close to one single person can be such a tremendous joy,
how much more it will be when you are close to the whole.
The Master is just the beginning,
the Master is not the end.
And the true Master is only a door
– through him you pass and go beyond.
The true Master helps you to go beyond him.
You say,
’You had no Master.
No Buddha has a Master.
Sometimes I think that choosing a Master means to prevent one’s own enlightenment.’
Enlightenment is simply enlightenment;
it is neither mine nor yours.
The ego is separate,
the essence is not separate.
To think in terms of your own enlightenment is to be caught in the net,
in the trap of the ego again.
You miss the whole point.
If you think of ’your own’ enlightenment,
just as you think of your own car,
your own house,
your own wife,
you are starting to think of enlightenment also as something that you will possess.
You will not be there to possess it.
You will be possessed by it.
And to surrender to a Master simply means an experiment in being possessed by somebody.
You drop yourself
and the other enters you and fills you.
You learn surrender.
It is just the ABE of surrender.
But you cannot learn the xYz
if you have not even learned the ABE of it.
＊
When you go to learn how to swim you don’t go directly to the ocean,
you don’t go to deep waters,
you learn in shallow water near the bank
or you learn in a swimming pool.
The Master is like a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim.
Once you have learned,
all the oceans are yours, then you can go anywhere.
Then this whole existence belongs to you.
But you are no more there.
In fact, it will be better to say you belong to the whole existence
– not that you possess enlightenment,
enlightenment possesses you.
’Sometimes I think that choosing a Master means to prevent one’s own enlightenment.’
You don’t have a Master yet,
so who has prevented you from becoming enlightened?
Why are you not enlightened yet?
Then those who don’t have Masters must be enlightened.
If choosing a Master prevents enlightenment,
then those who don’t have Masters must be enlightened.
Choosing the Master does not prevent enlightenment.
Getting caught by the Master
and getting caught into the Master
– which prevents enlightenment –
these are two different things.
That is why Buddha says,
’If you meet me on the way,
kill me immediately.’
And I say to you too:
If you see me on the way,
kill me immediately.
The Master is a ladder.
You have to use it
and you have to go beyond it.
The Master is a boat.
You have to use it,
and when you have reached the other shore you have to leave it.
You need not carry it on your head.
If you carry it on your head you are stupid.
And you have not reached anywhere.
You must be dreaming,
because such stupid people never reach to the other shore.
Choosing the Master does not prevent enlightenment;
but a moment comes
when you have to go beyond the Master,
then don’t cling
– clinging to the Master will prevent you.
But if there is a real Master he will not allow you to cling to him.
That is the definition of a real Master.
He teaches you to get involved,
he teaches you to become committed,
and one day he teaches you to become uncommitted again,
to become uninvolved again.
Then the Master is perfect.
The ordinary so-called masters just teach you one thing:
how to become attached to them
and then to remain attached to them.
That’s the definition of a pseudo master.
Avoid the pseudo masters.
But to find a true Master is not going to prevent your enlightenment.
You will not become enlightened without him.
It is a paradoxical phenomenon.
You have to choose the Master
and
you have to go beyond the Master.
If you understand this paradox,
my answer will be clear to you.
from osho talks
from osho transformation tarot
The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1
Talks on the Secret of the Golden Flower
Talks given from 11/08/78 am to 26/08/78 am
English Discourse series
Chapter 6
Chapter title: Born with Joy
16 August 1978 am in Buddha Hall
The free downloading of all chapters of this osho discourse, please click here.
＊ ＊ ＊
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means right remembrance.
meditation & love
osho samadhi
