Renewal / Rebirth
Renewal / 新しいものに変えること
Rebirth / 生まれ変わる
The heritage of the Buddha
ゴータマ・ブッダの財産
commentary（解説）…
あなた自身の感じていることが完全に正しいとされていて
…しかもあなたが、自分はまったく正しい！と感じる…
そのような状況においてすら、
それでもなお、
これまでにあなたが知ってきたあらゆることを超えている、
なにかの可能性に対して開いていなさい。
過去の体験から飛び出して、
まったく新しい次元に飛び込みなさい。
osho…
この物語をあなた方に話そう…
ゴータマ・ブッダが光明 enlightenment を得たとき、
最初にしたことは彼の家族のもとに帰ったことだった
…そうすれば、家族は彼に何が起こったのか見ることができるからだ。
それは人間には自然なことだ、
彼の父親、妻、子供を思い出すことは。
今では彼は分かち合うものを持っている、
そして
彼はそれをみんなへ分かち合おうとしている。
彼がかつて愛した全ての人たちを
思い出したことは自然なことだった。
しかし
彼の妻はとても怒っていた
…それも人間には自然なことだ。
ある夜、突然、
この男は逃げた、
彼女になにも告げずに。
彼女は偉大な才能や知性の女性で、
誇り高かった。
美しい女性！
その当時最も美しい女性。
その傷は深かった。
そしてあなたは驚くだろう、
その傷はゴータマ・ブッダが彼女から去っていったことではなかった
…それは問題ではなかった。
彼女はこの男を途方もなく愛していたので、
もし彼が彼の内側を探究するために森へ行くことを望むならば、
彼女はそれを許しただろう。
その傷は
彼が彼女になにも言わなかったこと、
彼が彼女を信頼しなかったこと
…それが傷だった。
その違いを見てごらん！
彼女は普通の女性ではなかった。
これが彼女を傷つけたことだった、
「なぜ彼は私を信じることができなかったの？」
もし彼が尋ねたら、
もし彼が言ってくれたら、
「私は世界や王国やあなたや子供に関心はありません。
突然私は幻滅した、
私は”私は誰なのか？”という
私の内側の探究のために森へ行くことを望む。」
彼女は許しただろう。
もちろん、彼女の涙とともに、
しかし
彼女は勇敢な女性だった
…彼女は妨げなかっただろう。
彼女はこの男を愛していた、
愛はいつも自由を与える。
だから、それは問題ではなかった！
ゴータマ・ブッダが逃げたことは。
問題は彼がなにも言わなかったことだった。
彼は泥棒のように逃げた。
ゴータマ・ブッダがやって来たとき、
彼女は自然に怒った。
彼女は急に激怒し、
これが中心のポイントだった。
彼女は言った、
「なぜあなたは私に告げなかったの？
私はあなたを妨げることはしなかったでしょう、
あなたは私を知っている
…あなたは完璧に私を知っている。
私たちは何年も一緒に住みました。
私があなたを妨げたことが1度でもありましたか？
私はあなたをとても深く広く愛しました、
だから
もしあなたが独りで森へ行くことを望むならば、
私はあなたを許したでしょう。
私は苦しんだでしょう！
しかし
それは私の問題にはならなかった。
でも、
私はあなたの探究の壁になることはしなかったでしょう。
なぜ私に告げなかったの？」
それは彼女が何度も何度も尋ねた質問だった。
それで
彼女の怒りの中で、彼女は彼女の息子を呼んだ。
ゴータマ・ブッダが去ったとき、
その息子は生後まだ一ヶ月だった、
今では彼は12歳になっていて
何度も何度もこう尋ねていた、
「私の父はどこにいるのですか？
私の父は誰ですか？」
彼女は息子を呼んで言った、
「ラーフラ」
…息子の名前はラーフラだった…
「この人がおまえの父親です。
彼は臆病者のように逃げました。
この人があなたに誕生を与えました。
さあ、あなたの財産を尋ねなさい。」
彼女はあざけていた、
なぜならゴータマ・ブッダは今では乞食だったからだ
…なんの財産？
なにを彼は持っているのか？
その女性は本当に怒っていた
彼女は子供に言った、
「あなたの財産を尋ねなさい！
この人はあなたの父親です
…なにをあなたに与えるのでしょうか？」
そしてゴータマ・ブッダは笑った、
あなたは彼がなにをしたのか知っているかい？
彼は子供をサニヤス（弟子 disciple / 探究者）に入信した。
彼は彼の乞食腕を子供に与えて言った、
「私は本当はこのためにやって来たのだよ。
私は見つけた、
私は私の息子も見つけることを望んでいるよ。
そして、ヤショダーラ
…それは彼の妻の名前だった…
この怒りを終わりにしなさい。
それは今となっては重要ではない、
なぜなら
あなたが怒っているその男はもういないのだから。
私は死んで
そして
私は再び生まれた。
私はあなたの激怒を理解できるよ、
しかし
あの夜にあなたから去ったあの男はもういないんだ。
あなたは誰と話しているのかな？
私を再びよく見てごらん！」
彼女の目は涙でいっぱいだったけれども、
彼女はゴータマ・ブッダを見た
…そして認識した、
「そうだ、この人はあの男ではない。
見た目は同じだ、
体も同じだ、
しかし
霊的に質が違う
…おぼろげにだが導師 master がそこにいた。」
そして全ての彼女の怒りが消えた。
ライオンのうなり声…
彼女はゴータマ・ブッダの足に触れた、
入信（イニシエーション）を尋ね、
サニヤシン（弟子 disciple / 探究者）になった。
（The Perfect Master, Vol 2）
ラビンドラナートの詩の中の1つで彼は言う、
ゴータマ・ブッダが彼の宮殿を去ってから
12年後に彼は宮殿に戻って来た
…彼は光明 enlightenment を得た。
ゴータマ・ブッダは千の花々を持っている、
自然に彼は彼の妻、彼の子供、彼の年老いた父親を思い出した、
そして彼は彼らを助けたいと思った。
彼は彼が至ったものを分かち合いたいと思った、
だから彼は彼の宮殿へと戻った。
妻のヤショダーラは
彼が12年前に家を出て行ったことを自然にとても怒った。
12年間彼女は怒りを蓄積した、
しかしインドの妻は、
もし彼女が怒ったとしても、
彼女の怒りを夫に表さない、
少なくともその時代では。
しかしとても他人ごとのように…
彼女はゴータマ・ブッダに1つの質問をした。
それは歴史的なものごとではない、
それはラビンドラナート・タゴレの詩によるものだ、
彼自身の発想だ
しかしそれは彼の態度とアプローチを表している。
ヤショダーラはゴータマ・ブッダに尋ねる、
「ただ1つの質問をあなたに尋ねなければなりません、
12年間私はこの質問をあなたに尋ねることを待ちました。
あなたは光明 enlightenment を得ました、
それはこの世界に、私と一緒に家の中で住みながら
光明 enlightenment を得ることは不可能なのですか？
ただ1つの質問をあなたに尋ねたいのです、
それはこの世界から逃げることは確かに必要なのですか、
家の中では可能ではないのですか？
私はあなたの意識よりもっとパワフルなのですか？
〈真理〉を探究するよりもっと誘惑があるのですか？」
そしてラビンドラナートは言う
ゴータマ・ブッダは彼の頭を下げてうなずいた
そして静かに立っていた、
一言も言わずに。
しかしそれは全てを語っている
…今やゴータマ・ブッダは知っている
光明 enlightenment は家の中で得ることができることを。
妻や子供や老いた父親や家族や人々を
見捨てる必要はなかった、
その必要はなかった。
今やゴータマ・ブッダは知っている！
今や彼は光明 enlightenment を得るのは
山や森ではどうにもならないことを知っている、
光明 enlightenment はどこでも起こることができると知っている。
（The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5
（The book of the books Vol 5））
from osho talks
oshoの講話より
from osho transformation tarot
osho transformation タロット より
The Perfect Master, Vol 2
Talks on Sufi Stories
Talks given from 01/07/78 am to 10/07/78 am
English Discourse series
Chapter 7
Chapter title: The Lion’s Roar
7 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall
この全講話の英語のダウンロードpdfはこちら。
The Perfect Master, Vol 2 : chapter 7 と
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5 : chapter 6 の質問4の
英語の全講話です。
（上の日本語のこのカードの解説はこの講話の1部であり、
昔のこのカードについていた日本語の解説です。
今のカードには英語の解説しかありません。
以下の英語の講話はこのお話しの全てです。
英語はなんとか読めるのですが…
翻訳とかできるような実力はないので…
間違っているかもしれませんが
あくまでも趣味で独学ですが
導師 master osho との瞑想 meditation と思って和訳してみたりしていますσ(^_^;)
まだ以下の英語の講話を全部訳すことができていませんが…
いつになるかわかりませんが少しづつがんばって訳していますσ(^_^;)
素晴らしいお話しなので英語で読める方は
是非読んでみてください。）
The Perfect Master, Vol 2
The Lion’s Roa
AT THE TIME OF KING MAHMUD, THE CONQUEROR OF GHAZNA, THERE LIVED A YOUNG MAN BY THE NAME OF HAIDAR ALI JAN. HIS FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF THE TIME.
HAIDAR ALI, WHEN HE HAD MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND THE EXERCISES, WHEN HE KNEW THE RECITALS AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY HIS FATHER INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.
”MIGHTY MAHMUD,” SAID ISKANDAR, ”I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT, KNOWING THAT YOU ARE THE PATRON OF LEARNING OF OUR EPOCH.”
MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP, BUT HE MERELY SAID, ”BRING HIM BACK IN A YEAR.”
SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED, BUT NURSING HIGH HOPES, ISKANDAR SENT ALI TO STUDY THE WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST, AND TO VISIT THE SHRINES OF THE ANCIENT MASTERS IN BAGHDAD, SO THAT THE INTERVENING TIME WOULD NOT BE WASTED.
WHEN HE BROUGHT THE YOUTH BACK TO THE COURT, HE SAID, ”PEACOCK OF THE AGE! MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS, AND AT THE SAME TIME TO HIS KNOWLEDGE OF EXERCISES HE HAS ADDED A COMPLETE FAMILIARITY WITH THE CLASSICS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH. PRAY HAVE HIM EXAMINED, SO THAT IT MAY BE SHOWN THAT HE COULD BE AN ADORNMENT OF YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT.”
”LET HIM,” SAID MAHMUD IMMEDIATELY, ”RETURN AFTER ANOTHER YEAR.”
DURING THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS, HAIDAR ALI CROSSED THE OXUS AND VISITED BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND, QASR-I-ARIFIN AND TASHQAND, DUSHAMBE AND THE TURBATS OF THE SUFI SAINTS OF TURKESTAN.
WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE COURT, MAHMUD OF GHAZNA TOOK ONE LOOK AT HIM AND SAID, ”HE MAY CARE TO COME BACK AFTER A FURTHER YEAR.”
HAIDAR ALI MADE THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA IN THAT YEAR.
HE TRAVELLED TO INDIA; AND IN PERSIA HE CONSULTED RARE BOOKS AND NEVER MISSED AN OPPORTUNITY OF SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THY TREAT DERVISHES OF THE TIME.
WHEN HE RETURNED TO GHAZNA, MAHMUD SAID TO HIM, ”NOW SELECT A TEACHER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”
WHEN THAT YEAR WAS OVER AND ISKANDAR KHAN PREPARED TO TAKE HIS SON TO THE COURT, HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD MOVE HIM.
”I HAVE WASTED MY TIME, AND MY MONEY, AND THIS YOUNG MAN HAS FAILED THE TESTS IMPOSED BY MAHMUD THE KING,” HE LAMENTED, AND HE ABANDONED THE WHOLE AFFAIR.
MEANWHILE, THE DAY WHEN THE YOUTH WAS DUE TO PRESENT HIMSELF CAME AND WENT, AND THEN MAHMUD SAID TO HIS COURTIERS, ”PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR A VISIT TO HERAT; THERE IS SOMEONE THERE WHOM I HAVE TO SEE.”
AS THE EMPEROR’S CAVALCADE WAS ENTERING HERAT TO THE FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS, HAIDAR ALI’S TEACHER TOOK HIM BY THE HAND, LED HIM TO THE GATE OF THE TEKKIA, AND THERE THEY WAITED.
SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, MAHMUD AND HIS FOUR TIER AYAZ, TAKING OFF THEIR SHOES, PRESENTED THEMSELVES AT THE SANCTUARY.
”HERE, MAHMUD,” SAID THE SUFI SHEIK, ”IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR SUFI COUNSELLOR FOR HE IS READY.”
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE STUDIES OF HIRAVI, HAIDAR ALI JAN, THE SAGE OF HERAT.
RELIGION IS A RISK, A REBELLION, AND A REBIRTH, RELIGION is not a consolation,
it is not conformity,
it is not convention.
Religion is not part of the world – it is something of the beyond.
Religion cannot be learnt: it can only be imbibed.
There is no study which is going to help you to become religious.
All studies lead astray.
Religion is not a kind of learning.
On the contrary, it is unlearning.
Not that you have to know more, but that you have to come to a point where all knowing disappears, and you become innocent, and you are a child again.
And again the wonder is fresh and the mystery of life is revealed to you.
The knower lives in his mind.
And the mind goes on pretending that is knows.
And because the mind pretends that it knows, it demystifies existence.
Knowledge is the most irreligious phenomenon there is in the world – because without the experience of the mysterious there is no possibility of being in contact with God.
The mystery is the door.
Knowledge has to be dropped so that you can open your eyes again like a child – fresh, young, full of wonder, knowing nothing, or, only knowing that you know nothing.
These few things have to be understood before we can enter into this beautiful story.
Why do I call religion a risk?
and not only a risk but the greatest?
Why?
Because you have to lose yourself.
There are other risks in life, but they are small risks.
You have to lose your money, or you have to lose your prestige, or you have to lose your wife... or this or that.
But in religion, nothing less than your totality is required – you have to lose yourself.
Naturally, one shrinks back one is frightened.
It is a jump out of the ego and into the ego less abyss.
It is a discontinuity with the past, with all that you have thought you are.
It is a breakthrough.
You lose your identity – it is a great crisis in identity.
You have known yourself as this or that – a name, a form, a society, a nation – religion requires that you lose all your identity.
A religious person is neither an Indian nor a Chinese, neither a Hindu nor a Mohammedan.
A religious person is neither black nor white. All these things are stupidities.
Then WHO IS a religious person?
He is not a person at all, but only a presence.
He drops his personality.
He cannot say who he is.
He cannot define himself.
But in that indefinable state of consciousness, he knows who he is.
This is a paradox:
those who know who they are don’t know;
and
those who are ready to risk their whole identity and come to a point where they don’t know who they are, only they are the people who become capable of knowing.
It is a gamble.... Very few people have that much courage.
Religion is not for the cowards.
For the cowards is politics.
Religion is not for the inferior.
For the inferior is politics.
The WHOLE political world depends on the inferiority complex.
When a man feels himself to be nothing, nobody, he starts projecting himself in the world of ambition – politically he wants to become somebody, a president, a prime minister.
Or, money wise he becomes a millionaire, famous.
Or he wants to become a Nobel Laureate, or something....
These are the ways of ambition.
And why does ambition arise in the first place at all?
It arises out of the inferiority complex.
You feel inferior within yourself, you feel nobody.
It hurts.
It is like an open wound.
You want to hide it.
You become occupied in ambition.
You rush away from yourself as far as you can.
You want to forget yourself!
You want to get occupied in the world of money, power, prestige.
Religion is for those
who are ready to go into this nothingness of their being,
who DON’T think that they have to be somebody.
ALL that they want is to know who they are.
They don’t want to be somebody.
They don’t project.
They simply want to enter into the innermost shrine of their being and to see what is there.
If it is nothingness, then it is nothingness.
Then nothingness is beautiful.
Then THIS is our nature.
Then there is no problem, it is not a wound.
One need not search for any medicine for it;
it needs no healing.
The ambitious person runs out, afraid to encounter nothingness.
The religious person rushes in to know
”What is this nothingness that I am?”
Risk is there.
Death is there.
But out of this death is resurrection, is rebirth.
But if you go to the temples and the churches and the mosques, you will find a totally different kind of person praying there – he is cowardly.
His God is out of fear.
He is as ambitious as anybody else.
He is seeking support of the God so that he can succeed in his ambition.
He is not interested in God himself.
He wants to exploit God too, in some way or other.
He has a motivation.
He is cowardly, and out of his cowardliness he has created a great religion, ritual – the priest, the church.
Religion is in the hands of irreligious people.
A Mahavir, a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Mansoor, a Rumi, a Kabir, a Nanak –
these are not people who are afraid.
These are NOT people who are praying out of fear!
They are praying out of love, not out of fear.
They are praying out of sheer joy.
They are praying out of thankfulness.
They are not asking for anything from God – because God has already given all that is needed.
The real religious person needs to be immensely courageous to enter into his nothingness. And inside there is a GREAT nothingness... as vast as the sky, as infinite as the sky.
There is an outer sky
and there is an inner sky.
The worldly person moves out,
the religious person moves in.
To move out is very easy,
because millions are moving there.
You can become part of the crowd;
you need not have any individual courage of your own.
You can simply ride on the mob psychology.
All the people are doing something – you can become part of it.
Man is an imitator.
If anything proves that man comes from the monkeys it is his tremendous capacity to imitate.
But to go in, you are alone.
Absolutely alone.
Nobody can be there with you,
not even a friend.
But only those who are ready to be alone will be able to know what God is –
because God is found in your innermost aloneness.
God is the innermost center of your aloneness.
God is not found as an object:
God is found not as the sought but as the seeker.
God is NEVER found there:
God is always found HERE.
Never then:
always now.
God is not a goal, distant from you:
God is your very consciousness,
your very being,
your very existence.
But for that, this courage is needed –
courage to be alone,
courage to be a non-entity.
That’s why the other day I said:
I am a very ordinary person, extraordinarily ordinary.
And I would like you also to become extraordinarily ordinary – because in that VERY ordinariness, God is found.
To try to be somebody,
to try to be special, is the way of ambition and the way of the ego.
And the ego never meets God.
That’s why the other day I told you that I am not perfect – or, I am perfectly imperfect.
And that’s what I would like you to be too.
Imperfect – perfectly imperfect.
Then you can relax.
Then there is no way to go anywhere, and no need.
Then there is no ideal to be fulfilled.
Then you are not constantly trying to improve upon yourself – you simply relax.
You are in a let-go.
And when you are in a let-go, a prayer arises from the very ground of your being – which is not DONE by you.
It arises as fragrance arises out of flowers, as light falls from the stars.
It naturally arises!
And when prayer is natural,
it has tremendous beauty,
tremendous power.
It liberates.
Be courageous.
And let me repeat:
the greatest courage is to be non-ambitious.
Religion is not a formality;
it is not a kind of behavior;
it is not a certain etiquette.
You can learn the behavior of the religious people.
You can go through the whole act of being religious.
You can bow down in the temple, you can pray, you can even manage tears to flow down your cheeks.
And deep down you know you are not in it.
It is just a put-on act.
Maybe you have become very skillful in it.
You have done it so long that it looks almost natural, but it is not.
Your heart is not in it.
You can say to your wife during the day a hundred times,
”I love you.”
But if your heart is not in it, you know that these words are dead, that these words have no wings.
And you know that moment also when you really love, and you say,
”I love you.”
And the difference!
And the difference is immense.
The words are the same;
there is no way to detect any difference in the words.
No phonetic analysis,
no analysis of the sound,
is going to find any difference.
But you know:
when you love, those words are no more ordinary – they are radiant, they have a luminosity, they are aflame.
Your heart beats in them, they are alive.
And when you are just repeating it because it has to be repeated – because there are books in the world like Dale Carnegie’s books and Napoleon Hill’s books, which go on saying that even if you don’t love, go on repeating – it helps.
It lubricates relationship.
Maybe they are right, it lubricates,
but it is not the true thing.
You may live a smooth life, but just to live a smooth life is worthless.
One has to live a life of passion and prayer and love – not just a smooth life.
One has to live a life of adventure, of exploration.
NOT just a smooth life!
One has to live totally.
One’s life torch has to burn from both ends – even though it is only for one single moment, but then that single moment is eternity.
When you live at the optimum, then you know what life is.
And then you know the celebration of it and the benediction of it.
Religion is not a formality.
Avoid formalities.
If you really want to be religious some day, avoid formalities.
The greatest danger with formality is that if you become accustomed to formality you will never become aware that you are missing the real thing.
The man who carries false coins and thinks they are real coins will not search for the real.
That is going to be his misfortune.
Never be formal about religion.
Never be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan – these are all formalities.
Be prayerful, but not in a formal way.
Let prayer arise.
Wait for it.
Long for it!
Search for it!
Imitation is borrowed.
Formality is borrowed.
OTHERS teach you what to do.
And religion requires a mature person,
not just a person who is like a parrot.
It is not a formality because it is not part of culture, civilization, society.
In fact, religion is basically asocial – not anti-social but asocial.
It takes you beyond society.
You are caught up by the society,
you are conditioned by the society.
The society is your prison It does not allow you to move out of its boundaries.
It gives you enough rope so that you can have a certain feeling of freedom, but you are not free.
No society allows freedom.
No society exists for freedom.
The name of freedom is being exploited,
but no society is free.
To have a free society will mean to have no society at all – then there will be pure individuals.
And all that we know as society will be just a formal arrangement: like the post office and the railway department – a formal arrangement.
No imposition of any inner structure.
No imposition of any obedience, but a help, a nourishing help, so that everybody can become himself.
Not that he has to conform to a certain mould.
No society yet exists which is religious, not even the Indian society.
Indians like the idea very much, and their so-called gums go on roaming around the world and declaring to the world that India IS religious – it is all nonsense.
Formally they are right,
but religion has nothing to do with formality.
Religion is rebellion; it is the spirit of rebellion.
Rebellion of the individual.
Rebellion of the soul.
Search for freedom, and ultimate freedom.
Great courage is, of course, needed.
Guts are needed.
That’s why so many people think they are religious, but very few are.
Only once in a while do you find a religious person.
AND REMEMBER THAT RELIGION IS NOT SCHOLARSHIP.
You to can learn the Vedas and the Bible and the Koran, and you can become REALLY efficient, yet you will not be religious.
The same work can be done by a computer in a far better way.
Only one thing the computer cannot do, and that is: it cannot feel.
The computer can think.
Now we have machines which can think, but no machine can feel.
Religion has something to do with the feeling part of your being,
not with the thinking part of your being.
You can study,
you can become very knowledgeable,
you can be burdened with great knowledge,
but all this burdening slowly slowly will dry the juices of your heart.
This knowledge will be like rocks, and your heart will flow no more.
Your heart will be too much surrounded by rocks.
It needs a little freedom to flow.
It is a small stream of love.
Arid only that small stream of love knows how to go to God.
No rock can go to the ocean – only that small stream of love knows how to reach the ocean.
And it needs no maps, no guidebooks.
It simply knows.
The knowing is intuitive.
Every man simply knows how to love – there is no need to teach him.
What is needed then?
All that is needed is a loving atmosphere where the spirit can be imbibed.
That’s what happens when you go to a Master, when you enter a Sufi TEKKIA – a Sufi school, or a Buddhafield, or when you enter into the energy world of a Master:
you are going into a magnetic field
where love is flowing,
where many hearts are dancing,
where minds have been put aside,
where feeling has become supreme.
Just all that you need is a climate.
The Master is a climate, an atmosphere, in which you suddenly become aware of your own potential.
Not that the Master gives you something – there is no need!
All that is needed has always been given to you by God.
But in the presence of the Master,
some chord in your heart starts responding,
as if somebody is playing music and the very hearing of it and a dance arises in you.
Your whole body wants to dance.
You are in the grip of the music;
it has touched and moved your heart.
You are connected, bridged.
A Master is a musician.
He sings a song.
He lives a song.
He vibrates, pulsates a certain melody.
And those who are intimate with him,
those who allow themselves to be close to him,
those who can be in a kind of let-go with him,
those who relax with him...
this is what sat sang is:
relaxing with a Master,
dropping your tensions.
There is a pool of energy;
if you drop your tensions,
suddenly you will become aware of your own pool too.
A very famous ancient story:
It happened,
a small group of sheep was passing through a valley.
A lioness jumped from one side to the other side, from one hillock to another hillock.
And just while she was jumping, she gave birth to a child.
The child fell into that small group of sheep.
The child was brought up by the sheep.
Naturally, the child knew from the very beginning that he was a sheep.
He never became aware of his being a lion – although he was a lion!
Just by forgetting, your nature does not change.
He became very big, but the growth came so slowly, so slowly, that the sheep also accepted him – he was a freak child, it appeared.
Something strange, eccentric, a little bit off the track, outlandish, but in every other way he was a sheep.
Absolutely vegetarian he was, and walked like sheep, and lived with sheep, and talked like sheep.
One day this miracle was seen by another lion.
An old lion passing by looked at this miracle – he could not believe his eyes.
It was impossible!
The young lion was walking with the sheep and the sheep were not afraid.
They were going so together in such great friendship – he could not believe his eyes!
He had never heard of such a thing.
He rushed to catch hold of the lion.
”What has gone... has he gone mad or something?”
And the sheep escaped, and the sheep lion also escaped, naturally – so much afraid, trembling.
But the old lion became very curious, and somehow he got hold of him, took him to the river.
And he was NOT willing to go.
He was shrinking back and holding back, and he was saying,
”Just leave me, please. Leave me alone! Let me go with my people.”
I know this story, because this is what I go on doing to you every day, and you say,
”Leave me alone.
Let me be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian – let me go to my people!
Where are you taking me?
I am just a sheep, and I am perfectly happy. Don’t disturb me!”
But the old lion persisted He forced the young lion to the river, and there they both looked into the river, the silent river, no ripples. It was like a mirror.
And the old lion said,
”Look, you are not a sheep. Look in the river!”
Just the look... and do you know what happened?
A great lion’s roar, suddenly!
This is what Zen people call ’sudden enlightenment’.
It was not a gradual process.
Not that he said,
”Okay, I will think about it.”
Not that
”First I will have to go to school and study how to be a lion.”
Not that
”Sir, I am very grateful to you – let me become your disciple.
And, slowly slowly, one day, in this life or in some other life,
I will attain to this enlightenment.
I am grateful that you have showed me the path.”
Nothing of this sort.
Just SEEING his face and seeing the old lion’s face similar, a roar exploded.
In a single moment!
In fact, in no time,
with no interval of time.
Timelessly.
Instantly.
Immediately...
the sheep disappeared and there was a young lion.
This is the meaning of being with a Master.
You are not what you think you are.
You have been taught you are this and that.
You are not these small identities, these small egos.
You are vast.
You are infinite.
You are eternal.
TAT-TVAM-ASI: Thou ART That!
Not less than that.
You are gods and goddesses.
But you have fallen into many traps.
SO IT IS NOT a question of studying.
Religion has to be imbibed from someone who has arrived.
It is from a Master to a disciple.
It is not from the book to the student.
It is from the ALIVE Master to the alive disciple.
It is a transmission of insight.
The Master is not a person
but only a climate, a music, a silence.
If you love, you also become silent – because whatsoever you love, you become like that.
Remember it!
Be very cautious in loving something,
because whatsoever you love,
you will become that.
The man who loves money, becomes money.
He thinks only in terms of money and nothing else.
The man who loves things, possessions, himself becomes a possession and nothing else, becomes a thing.
Love something great!
If you love a flower, it is better than loving money.
If you love the moon, it is better than loving a house.
If you love a woman, a man, a child, it is better than loving power and prestige.
But if you can find a Master and fall in his love,
then that is the door to the divine –
because on this earth, nothing is closer to God than a Master.
And the difference between you and the Master is not of quality:
the difference is only of remembrance.
Remember again the old lion and the young lion.
What is the difference?
There is no existential difference,
no difference at all fundamentally.
But there IS a difference, a small difference, but that makes all the difference.
The young lion has forgotten who he is.
His heart has forgotten the language of a lion.
He knows no more how to roar,
how to shake the mountains with his roar.
In the presence of the old lion, he imbibed, he recognized.
Looking in the eyes of a Master,
you will recognize who you are.
Walking with the Master,
you will recognize who you are.
Just think of sitting with a Buddha...
how long can you go on thinking that you are a sheep?
Sooner or later the lion’s roar....
This story has many beautiful points to be understood:
AT THE TIME OF KING MAHMUD, THE CONQUEROR OF GHAZNA, THERE LIVED A YOUNG MAN BY THE NAME OF HAIDAR ALI JAN.
HIS FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF THE TIME.
YOU WILL HAVE TO GO SLOWLY INTO THE STORY,
because these stories are not just stories to be read and forgotten.
They are reminders.
They are devices.
They are keys.
They have many meanings.
And you will have to be very very patient and sympathetic with each single word.
THE FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIS SON, HAIDAR ALI, THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR...
That’s what fathers have always been doing.
Their own ambitions they go on projecting through their children.
Maybe he wanted to become somebody important in the King’s court and he could not.
Now he is poisoning his son.
Now he is trying to make his son carry the load that he has been carrying his whole life.
Now he is getting old, frustrated, knows that he has failed.
Nobody’s ambitions are ever fulfilled.
The ambitious person always fails, has to fail.
If the ambitious can succeed, then there will be no need of Buddhas.
Then Buddhas will be irrelevant.
Ambition fails.
You have heard the proverb:
Nothing succeeds like success.
I say unto you:
Nothing fails like success.
When you have succeeded,
then you know that you have failed.
All the money that you wanted is there, and you are as poor as ever – in fact, more so.
All the power that you always wanted is there, but deep inside you you are the same beggar – immature, ugly, unenlightened.
You have become famous, the whole word knows you, who you are, but you yourself don’t know who you are – so what is the point?!
Jesus says:
You can have the whole world as your possession,
but if you have lost your soul,
then what is the point of it all?
The kingdom is there, but the king is dead.
And that’s what happens in success:
you go on selling the king for the kingdom.
Finally, the kingdom is there but the king is no more.
That’s what I call the ultimate failure of success.
And every parent fails in some way or other – unless he becomes a Buddha.
But then it is totally different.
＊
I would like to tell you the story...
When Buddha became enlightened, the first thing he did was to come back to his family – so that they could see what had happened to him.
It was natural, human, to remember his wife his child, his old father.
Now he has something to share, and he would like to share it with everybody.
And it is natural that he should remember all those that he has loved before.
But the wife was very angry – that too is natural and human.
One night suddenly this man had escaped, not even telling her.
She was a woman of great caliber, intelligence, and a woman who was very proud.
A beautiful woman! One of the most beautiful of those days.
And the wound was deep.
And you will be surprised that the wound was not that Gautam Siddhartha left her – that was not the problem.
She had loved this man so tremendously that if he wanted to go to the forest for his inner search, she would have allowed.
The wound was that he didn’t say anything to her, that he didn’t trust her – that was the wound.
See the difference!
She was no ordinary woman.
This was the thing that was hurting her:
”Why could he not believe in me?”
If he had asked, if he had said,
”I am no more interested in the world and the kingdom and you and the child.
Suddenly I have become disillusioned, and I would like to go to the forest to search into my inner world: who am I?”
she would have allowed.
Of course, with tears in her eyes,
but she was a courageous woman – she would not have prevented.
And she had loved the man:
love always gives freedom.
So that was not the problem!
that Buddha escaped.
The problem was that he didn’t say a thing.
He escaped like a thief.
When Buddha came, naturally, she was angry.
She burst into a rage, and this was the central point. She said,
”Why didn’t you tell me?
I would not have prevented you and you know me – you know me perfectly.
We had lived many years together.
Had I ever prevented you from anything?
I had loved you so deeply and so immensely that even if you wanted to go to the forest alone, I would have allowed you.
I would have suffered!
but that would have been my problem.
But I would not have become a barrier to your search.
Why didn’t you tell me?!”
That was the constant question she was asking.
And then, in her anger, she called her son.
When Buddha left,
the son was only one month old;
now he was twelve years old and he was constantly asking,
”Where is my father? Who is my father?”
She called the boy and said,
”Rahul” – Rahul was his name –
”this is your father.
He escaped like a coward.
This man has given birth to you.
Now ask for your heritage!”
She was taunting, because Buddha was now a beggar –
what heritage?
What had he got?
The woman was really angry and she said to the child,
”Ask for your heritage!
This is your father – what has he to give to you?”
And Buddha laughed, and do you know what he did?
He initiated the child into sannyas.
He gave him his begging-bowl and he said,
”I had come really for this.
I have found, and I would like my son also to find.
And, Yasodhara
– that was the name of his wife –
be finished with this anger.
It is pointless now, because the man you are being angry with is no more.
I have died and I am reborn.
I can understand your rage, but the man who had left you one night is no more.
With whom are you talking?
LOOK again at me!”
Although her eyes were full of tears, she looked at Buddha – and recognized:
”Yes, this is not the man.
Looks the same, physically the same,
but a different spiritual quality – the dim ate of a Master is there.”
And all her anger disappeared.
And the lion’s roar...
she fell at Buddha’s feet,
asked for initiation, became a sannyasin.
The parents can give only that which they have.
When parents are disillusioned,
they help their children to become disillusioned with the world.
When parents remain unfulfilled, ambitious,
they give all the poison that they have carried all along.
From one generation to another,
the poison goes on passing.
And it becomes more and more potent the older it becomes.
It is like alcohol:
the older it becomes, the more potent it becomes.
ISKANDAR KHAN DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS...
As if spirituality is something to be studied.
The father must have been a very unspiritual person, certainly.
Otherwise, why should he want his son to become part of the court of the king?
What a stupid thing to think about!
Must have been a very ignorant man;
otherwise, who would like his son to be ambitious?
who would like his son to be a politician?
Politics is neurosis – with a beautiful name.
The political person is a mad person, and the world is not going to be at peace unless the importance of politics disappears.
It has become all-important;
it has become the central core of life.
Religion is thrown into the margin.
It seems everybody wants to be powerful.
Nobody is desirous of peace.
The religious person desires peace,
and peace brings power.
And
the politician desires power,
and power only brings conflict, neurosis, anxiety....
If the father had really loved the child he would not have thought this.
But ordinarily every parent thinks that he loves the child that’s why he is planning.
What better course can a father plan?
... AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF THE TIME.
Spirituality is not a kind of scholarship.
It is nothing that you can study:
it is something that you have to be.
It is not like accumulation;
it is transformation, it is not information.
It is not that you remain the same and you come back home with more knowledge, with great certificates.
You never come back the same.
You come back a totally different person,
with a new vision of life,
with a new understanding,
with peace in the heart,
with a great silence and harmony in the being.
You come in tune with Tao,
in tune with the whole.
You come no more as an ego,
but as a part of the divine plan, of the divine whole.
HAIDAR ALI, WHEN HE HAD MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND THE EXERCISES, WHEN HE KNEW THE RECITALS AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY HIS FATHER INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.
Now the boy went, mastered all the repetitions – whatsoever Sufis say, he learnt it by heart, by rote – and learnt all the exercises.
You can learn all the Yoga exercises and that is not going to make you a yogi.
It will give you a better physique, better health.
It is not going to give you a better soul.
That is a totally different matter.
It has nothing to do with body postures.
It has something to do with the inner alchemy.
Your consciousness has to grow higher,
you have to become MORE aware.
And that is the purpose of Sufi exercises.
Those are not exercises, but from the outside they look like exercises.
And that is the purpose of Yoga exercises too.
But that purpose remains hidden.
It is revealed only between a Master and a disciple.
If you go just to learn the exercise, you can learn. You will become a good gymnast.
And Sufi exercises particularly are basically for remembrance:
how to remember oneself more.
The Sufi may be dancing, but while he is dancing, at the center he remains absolutely unmoving – the center of the cyclone.
The dance is the cyclone,
his whole body is in movement, fluid, flowing, dynamic,
but at the center, the witness is there silently watching, undisturbed, undistracted.
From the outside you can learn the exercise.
From the outside you will never become aware of what is happening inside.
And the inside is the true story.
HE MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND EXERCISES, AND WHEN HE KNEW THE RECITALS AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY HIS FATHER INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.
”MIGHTY MAHMUD,” SAID ISKANDAR, ”I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT, KNOWING THAT YOU ARE THE PATRON LEARNING OF OUR EPOCH.”
NOW LOOK AT THE ABSURDITY OF IT.
A Sufi won t bother to become part of a king’s court. He will avoid. In every way he will escape – even if the king is after him – because the court is the most mischievous place to be, the ugliest place to be, the most ill place to be. It is hell!
I have heard:
A great political leader died and went to that great eternal resting place. Upon arriving there, he was surprised at how similar the terrain was to home.
”My goodness,”
he said to the nearest person,
”I never expected heaven to be so much like New Delhi!”
”Mister,”
said the man,
”I’m sorry to inform you, but this is not heaven.... ”
Your capitals are the closest representations of hell. Your parliaments are more mad than any madhouses.
Why would a Sufi bother to be in a court?
But this man, the father, said to the King:
”MIGHTY MAHMUD, I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS...”
Now, it is not a training at all!
To be a Sufi is not a training.
It is a sudden illumination... the lion’s roar.
It is not a training,
it is not a gradual process,
it is not learning.
A TEKKIA – a Sufi school – is not really a school in the ordinary sense, because the learning is not learning but unlearning.
When you go to a Sufi Master, he teaches you how to unlearn.
He makes your slate clean.
He effaces all that is written there.
He makes you blank.
Great fear arises!
Just the other night, Radha was there. Just a few days before, great fear arose in her, because she saw some abyss just in front of her... as if she is near a precipice, and the mind is losing its grip on her. Thousands of thoughts buzzing around, but getting distant and distant and farther away.
One becomes very much afraid because one has lived with these thoughts so long.
One is perfectly at ease with these thoughts.
Without them you will suddenly feel you are no more. They constitute your identity.
Radha became very much afraid, so much afraid that she got a high fever.
The fever had nothing to do with the body.
It was not a fever of the physiology:
it was a spiritual fever.
Just OUT of fear, a great trembling came.
This moment comes to every disciple.
Sooner or later, the Master leads you to the precipice, where your mind simply disappears and you are left with a state of no-mind.
This is not a training:
this is really untraining.
This it not learning:
this is unlearning.
The Sufi Master does not help you to become more knowledgeable – he helps you to become absolutely innocent, IGNORANT.
Yes, ignorant.
He takes all the garbage from your head.
But the father said to the Emperor:
”I HAVE HAD MY MOST INTELLIGENT SON TRAINED SPECIALLY IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT...”
Now look for the motivation.
Even if people pray, they pray for ugly things.
One goes to a Sufi Master to learn something so that he can have a better position in the King’s court.
People use religion also for irreligious purposes.
This is sacrilegious.
This is a sin – it is an unforgivable crime.
God cannot be used for any other purposes.
All purposes can be used for God, but God for none. God has to remain the supreme purpose, the supreme meaning, the ultimate end.
But it happens.
That’s how our minds are.
MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP...
MUST HAVE BEEN A MEN OF UNDERSTANDING.
It is not worth looking up at all, because if the boy has really been with a Sufi Master he would not be ready to come to the court. That would be absolutely certain.
MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP... it is not even worth looking at the boy... BUT HE MERELY SAID, ”BRING HIM BACK IN A YEAR.”
SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED...
Naturally. The father was putting much hope in his son.
Just the other night a beautiful, intelligent woman was saying to me that she had come here with great expectations, and she is disappointed.
Now, what expectations can you have?
And whatsoever expectations your mind weaves and spins are GOING TO BE WRONG! because your mind is wrong.
And I am not here to fulfill anybody’s expectations.
If I fulfill YOUR expectations, how am I going to transform you?
I have to DESTROY your expectations.
I have to destroy the very mind that creates those expectations.
If you come to me, never come with expectations, otherwise you will be disappointed – because I have no obligation to fulfill your expectations in any way.
In fact, if I see that there are some expectations, I do things DELIBERATELY to destroy those expectations.
That is the price you have to pay to be with me.
SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED, BUT NURSING HIGH HOPES...
because it is only a question of one year more –
... ISKANDAR SENT ALI TO STUDY THE WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST...
See the point!
The man is utterly foolish.
Now he sends the son to study the works of the past Masters.
Religion is a spark;
you can get it only from an alive Master, not from the dead ones.
Christ cannot help you.
Buddha cannot help you.
You will have to find a living Christ, a living Buddha – because the spark has to jump from one living heart into another living heart.
Buddha helped many, but only when he was alive.
And Christ helped many, but only when he was alive.
A Master can help only when he is alive.
And there are people who were not even helped when Buddha was alive, and they are thinking now that they will be helped when-he is gone.
You go on missing living Masters, and then you hope that you will be able to have some contact with the deed Masters?
You are very cunning.
This is the way to avoid the contact.
You can go on pretending that you are such a religious person –
you worship Buddha and
you pray to Buddha and
you read the Dhammapada and
you recite his sayings, and
you follow whatsoever he has said,
you cultivate your character according to him,
you live as he wanted his disciples to live...
but all this is bogus,
because the living fire is no more there.
Your lion’s roar can be provoked by another living lion – there is no other way.
... TO STUDY THE WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST
the son was sent again,
AND TO VISIT THE SHRINES OF THE ANCIENT MASTERS IN BAGHDAD...
shrines!...
SO THAT THE INTERVENING TIME WOULD NOT BE WASTED.
The father must have been a businessman – ambitious.
Business people think time is money, time should not be wasted.
And their whole life is just a sheer wastage and nothing else.
Now this is a wastage!
Sending a young, alive boy to the shrines of dead Masters or to study classics. But there are people whose whole mind remains businesslike:
”Use this time. Gather a little more knowledge. Go to the shrines. Be blessed by the old Masters so that you can attain to a high post in the court of the King.”
WHEN HE BROUGHT THE YOUTH BACK TO THE COURT, HE SAID, ”PEACOCK OF THE AGE! MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS...”
Yes, long and difficult journeys – but none of them is a Sufi journey. Because the Sufi journey is an inward journey!
You need not go to Baghdad.
You need not go anywhere.
All that is needed is: you have to STOP going, and you have to fall into your own original source.
You have to go in.
Lao Tzu has said:
To know God one need not even leave his room... because God is in your innermost shrine.
”MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS, AND AT THE SAME TIME TO HIS KNOWLEDGE OF EXERCISES HE HAS ADDED A COMPLETE FAMILIARITY WITH THE CLASSICS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH. PRAY HAVE HIM EXAMINED...”
As if a Sufi understanding can be examined by anybody, as if there can be an examination for a Buddha.
”... SO THAT IT MAY BE SHOWN THAT HE COULD BE AN ADORNMENT OF YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT.”
Sufism is not something that can be shown, proved, examined, certified, sanctioned. It is so interior. It is so unavailable to the outer senses and outer criterions that only one who is a Sufi will recognize it.
Nobody else can recognize it.
If you are fast asleep, how can you recognize that somebody is awake?
If you have never been awake, what do you know about wakefulness?
What criterions are there?
What values to use to judge?
How to evaluate?
”LET HIM,” SAID MAHMUD IMMEDIATELY, ”RETURN AFTER ANOTHER YEAR.”
And why does Mahmud go on giving another year?
Because to learn patience is one of the greatest qualities of a Sufi.
To be utterly patient, infinitely patient, not in any hurry – that is the quality of a prayerful person.
He does not ask: he waits.
And in his waiting he is fulfilled.
And those who ask, they go on asking and their asking is never fulfilled.
Jesus says:
Ask and it shall be given to you.
Sufis have a far profounder saying:
Ask and it will not be given to you.
Ask not – wait!
and it shall be given to you.
Wait in trust.
Wait in deep understanding that when it is needed it will be given to you.
God is the giver.
When the real need arises, it WILL be given, not a single moment will be lost.
DURING THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS, HAIDAR ALI CROSSED THE OXUS AND VISITED BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND, QASR-I-ARIFIN AND TASHQAND, DUSHAMBE AND THE TURBATS OF THE SUFI SAINTS OF TURKESTAN.
Still moving into the world of the dead, going to the tombs of the ancient sages.
Masters can always be found, alive, breathing, aflame with God.
You need not go to tombs.
The world is not yet so poor;
God has not forsaken the world.
God goes on sending his messengers.
God goes on transforming people so that they can transform others.
It is a chain.
There is no need to go to Buddha – but you can find a Buddha.
But this is how our mind functions – mind is always interested in the past, never in the present.
The mind is afraid of the present, because the present will destroy it.
The present will take you beyond the mind.
The past cannot destroy the mind:
the past makes the mind more and more strong.
WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE COURT, MAHMUD OF GHAZNA TOOK ONE LOOK AT HIM...
Why now one look?
He has at least been patient. At least one quality of the Sufis is settling.
MAHMUD LOOKED AT HIM AND SAID, ”HE MAY CARE TO COME BACK AFTER A FURTHER YEAR.”
HAIDAR ALI MADE THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA IN THAT YEAR. HE TRAVEL LED TO INDIA, AND IN PERSIA HE CONSULTED RARE BOOKS AND NEVER MISSED AN OPPORTUNITY OF SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THE GREAT DERVISHES OF THE TIME.
Now things are changing.
Haidar Ali is moving from the past to the present. The patience is bringing fruits. He is becoming aware of the futility of what he has been doing up to now.
He went to Mecca, he went to India, he went to Persia, consulted... and missed not a single opportunity OF SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THE GREAT DERVISHES OF THE TIME.
Started moving in the search for those who were still alive – and there were many.
They are always there.
They wait for the seekers; they become available only to the disciples.
But still one thing was wrong:
he went to many, from one to another.
This is not the way to imbibe the spirit of a Master.
One has to be with one in deep intimacy.
You can go on moving from one to another, and you will never imbibe anybody’s spirit.
One day you are with Buddha, another day you are with Christ, another day you are with Krishna... you will learn no-thing.
How can you learn Krishna’s flute in one day?
How can you learn Buddha’s silence in one day?
How can you learn Christ’s compassion in one day?
These are not seasonal flowers – they don’t grow so fast.
These are like ancient cedars of Lebanon – they are huge trees, they take time, hundreds of years to penetrate deep into the earth, to rise high into the sky.
They are not seasonal flowers!
To attain to God is the greatest enterprise, the most arduous journey, and the greatest treasure.
You cannot just go on visiting and asking for blessings.
There are a few people always like that. Here also they come. They come for one day and they say,
”Osho, bless me.”
And I ask,
”How long are you going to stay?”
They say,
”I am going back tomorrow morning.”
”Why have you come? For what?”
”Just for your blessing.”
Blessings help, but only to those who are patient.
Blessings help, but only those who are ready to risk, who are not in such a hurry.
But people are stupid.
They may waste years in the university to attain to a stupid degree, but to be with a Master they think one day is enough, a blessing is enough.
It is not.
Great surrender is needed.
Something his changed in Haidar Ali.
Now he is moving amongst the alive.
But still one thing is wrong: he is moving too fast.
WHEN HE RETURNED TO GHAZNA, MAHMUD SAID TO HIM, ”NOW SELECT A TEACHER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”
THIS MAN, MAHMUD. SEEMS TO BE OP GREAT UNDERSTANDING.
Now he says, ”NOW select a teacher.”
He had not said that up to now, because up to now Haidar Ali was moving with the dead.
How can you select?
and there is no point in selecting:
you are dead, your Masters are dead...
how is life going to happen?
If you want to give birth to a child, you don’t get married to a dead woman, or do you?
You would like a young alive woman who can become a mother.
Life happens only through the alive.
Mahmud could see it. Some shine had come to the young man’s eyes, some fragrance. He had moved amongst gardens where flowers were blooming. He said,
”Now, select a Master – this is no way. You have become a rolling stone; you will not gather any moss. Select a Master!”
And one very beautiful thing he says:
”IF HE WILL HAVE YOU.”
Because you alone cannot select a Master.
It does not depend only on you;
in fact, it does not depend on you at all.
You can only say,
”I am available, Master. If you choose me, I am ready – but if you choose me.”
It is always the Master who chooses.
It is not a question on the disciple’s part to choose.
How can you choose?
What do you know?
Who is the Master?
Who is the right Master?
Out of your confusion, whatsoever you do will bring more confusion.
Out of your chaos, whatsoever you do will bring more chaos.
The Master chooses.
But the disciple has to make himself available.
That’s what Mahmud says:
”NOW SELECT A MASTER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU – if somebody is ready to have you, if somebody is ready to accept you.”
Remember always:
when a Master accepts you,
you have been blessed.
But foolish people think otherwise:
they think THEY are surrendering.
Just the other day somebody was asking:
”Why should I surrender to you?”
as if you have something to surrender,
something very precious.
You have nothing.
The Master takes away things that you don’t have, and gives you things that you already have. He helps you to get rid of illusions – and the ego is the greatest illusion.
But when a foolish person goes to a Master, he thinks he is putting the Master under some great obligation, he is obliging the Master – he is surren-dering.
”Look! A man of my caliber is surrendering.”
Remember always:
if you are chosen you are fortunate.
”NOW SELECT A MASTER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”
WHEN THE YEAR WAS OVER AND ISKANDAR KHAN PREPARED TO TAKE HIS SON TO THE COURT, HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD MOVE HIM.
This is becoming a Sufi.
Now he is aflame.
Now he is no more the same old young man.
He is a totally new being – he is reborn.
The Master has taken him in his womb, created him anew.
This is rebirth.
Iskandar Khan still thinks he is his son – he is no more.
When a man meets a Master,
all other relationships are dissolved.
Then there is no more any father,
no more any mother,
no more any son, wife, husband.
Then all relationships ARE dissolved.
Then all other relationships are only drama, games.
Then all relationships are dissolved into one relationship... and that is with the Master.
Now what does he care about the court?
Haidar Ali showed NO interest at all!
When you have known the real treasure,
when you have seen the real kingdom,
who bothers about stupid things?
HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT...
Now THIS is his kingdom, and this is his court.
The Sufi Master’s satsang is called ’his court’, because it is his kingdom; he is the emperor there.
And he goes on sharing his kingdom, his infinite treasure.
Now just to be at his feet is more than anything else.
What to say about being a part of the king’s court?
Even if it were proposed that he should become the king, he wouldn’t listen.
He HAS become the king – and of a kingdom that even death cannot take away.
And to be at the feet of the Master is the greatest joy there is.
It is heaven.
In that love,
in that intimacy,
in that relatedness,
all that has always been missing is no more missing – one has come home.
HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD MOVE HIM.
”I HAVE WASTED MY TIME, AND MY MONEY, AND THIS YOUNG MAN HAS FAILED THE TESTS IMPOSED BY MAHMUD THE KING...”
He has passed.
But according to his father’s understanding, he has failed.
To pass in the world of a Sufi is a totally different phenomenon.
Buddha had failed in the eyes of his father – and anybody would think so, the majority would agree with Buddha’s father.
He was born a king and now he has become a beggar – what more failure...?
When a beggar becomes a king we call it success.
But those who know, they know Buddha has succeeded.
MEANWHILE, THE DAY WHEN THE YOUTH WAS DUE TO PRESENT HIMSELF CAME AND WENT, AND THEN MAHMUD SAID TO HIS COURTIERS, ”PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR A VISIT TO HERAT – THERE IS SOMEONE THERE WHOM I HAVE TO SEE.”
The same young man who used to come again and again – and the first time Mahmud had not even looked at him.
Something has happened!
The day has come, and the day is gone, and the father went to Herat to bring the boy, and the boy has not come.
The message must have reached him that the father thinks the boy has failed, that the father has abandoned the whole affair.
AS THE EMPEROR’S CAVALCADE WAS ENTERING HERAT TO THE FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS, HAIDAR ALI’S TEACHER TOOK HIM BY THE HAND, LED HIM TO THE GATE OF THE TEKKIA, AND THERE THEY WAITED.
Now, even the Master cannot convince him, that he has to go – the Master has to take him by the hand.
The disciple is drunk, he is no more.
He is utterly fulfilled.
He won’t listen even to what the Master is saying.
The Master has to take him physically by the hand.
SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, MAHMUD AND HIS COURTIER AYAZ, TAKING OFF THEIR SHOES, PRESENTED THEMSELVES AT THE SANCTUARY.
”HERE, MAHMUD,” SAID THE SUFI SHEIK, ”IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR SUFI COUNSELOR – FOR HE IS READY.”
Only a Master can recognize whether a disciple is ready or not.
Only one who is awakened can see whether others are awakened or not.
The Master gives him as a gift to Mahmud, and says:
”HERE, MAHMUD, IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS...”
This is the beauty of this world of God:
when you rush after desires you remain a beggar;
when you stop rushing, all that you have been rushing for starts coming to you of its own accord.
When you ask, it is not given.
When you don’t ask, it showers on you.
There is a tremendously beautiful saying of Jesus.
I am never tired of quoting it again and again. Jesus says:
Those who have, more shall be given to them.
And those who don’t have, even that which they have will be taken away from them.
A strange statement to make – very strange.
Because our ordinary mathematics, arithmetic, socialism, communism, etcetera will say that:
Give to those who don’t have.
But Jesus says:
Those who have, more shall be given to them;
and those who don’t have, even that which they have shall be taken away from them.
This is the fundamental law.
If you are happy, more happiness comes to you.
If you are joyous, you attract more joyousness.
Like attracts like.
If you are miserable, more misery starts moving towards you.
YOU CREATE your world.
Don’t make anybody else responsible for it – it is always you who are responsible.
The Master said:
”THIS IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR SUFI COUNSELOR – FOR HE IS READY.”
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE STUDIES OF HIRAVI, HAIDAR ALI JAN, THE SAGE OF HERAT.
And then he became known as the Sage of Herat.
This is a small story,
but if you ponder over it it will reveal many secrets to you.
It will reveal to you the true meaning of religion.
It is a flame that jumps from the heart of the Master to the heart of the disciple.
It is a transmission beyond words, beyond scriptures.....
＊ ＊ ＊
from osho talks
oshoの講話より
from osho transformation tarot
osho transformation タロット より
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5
（The book of the books Vol 5）
Talks given from 11/10/79 am to 20/10/79 am
English Discourse series
10 Chapters
Chapter 6
Chapter title: Christ: the last Christian
16 October 1979 am in Buddha Hall
この全講話の英語のダウンロードpdfはこちら。
chapter 6 の質問4の英語の全講話です。
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5
（The book of the books Vol 5）
Christ: the last Christian
The fourth question:
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER,
WHY ARE THE INDIANS UNABLE TO SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?
Sandesh, they have a long past, a very long past,
longer than any other country,
longer than any other race.
And the longer the past,
the more prejudiced you are.
The American is the least prejudiced in the world
because he does not have a long past,
only three hundred years old.
It is nothing compared to the past of India.
Ten thousand years are absolutely certain historically,
but India existed before that.
In fact those who have gone deep into research,
they say Indian culture has existed for at least ninety thousand years or more.
Such a long past makes a country very old, utterly old.
Its mind becomes settled and stagnant,
it cannot accept anything new,
it is very difficult.
What is easy for the American is very difficult for the Indian.
The Indian thinks he knows already;
he is so well informed, at least about spirituality, that he does not feel that he has to come to me.
He never comes here,
but without coming here he goes on expressing his opinions about me.
It is natural in an ancient, old, dead culture.
And it is a very repressive past that India has gone through;
it does not allow freedom.
Freedom has never been the goal of Indian culture but obedience:
obedience to the society,
obedience to religion,
obedience to the scriptures.
And India has this idea that all that was beautiful has already happened, the golden age has already happened.
Now man is not evolving, progressing
-- but declining.
This is something to be understood.
In the West the idea is that man is evolving higher and higher, evolution is happening, there is great progress happening.
The golden age is in the future for the West.
For the East, particularly for India,
the golden age has already passed thousands of years ago;
we are on a decline.
We are not moving towards the peak,
we are moving towards the valley.
More and more darkness will surround us,
more and more death;
man will become more and more ugly.
Hence when I speak of a new humanity the West can understand me;
the Indian mind simply feels at a loss
-- what am I talking about?
"A new humanity, a golden age in the future?
It has already passed, it is history.
We are not going to attain any golden age in the future;
there is only death, man is doomed."
India has accepted this idea that the future is nothing but death, the future holds no hope.
And I bring a new hope to you.
I give you a new promise,
I herald a new humanity.
Hence it falls on deaf ears;
it is so much against their conditioning,
they cannot bridge the gap,
and it is a very very repressive conditioning.
India has repressed all that is natural;
it has gone into its unconscious,
it is there boiling within.
And I am talking about expressing,
and India believes in repression.
India believes in repression
-- sex, love, body, all that is natural.
And I believe in expression, creativity.
I am speaking a non-Indian language.
Hence this strange phenomenon that I am living in India
but I am not part of India at all.
This small community of my sannyasins is a world community
-- it is not an Indian ashram,
it is a world commune.
This small commune represents the whole of humanity,
not of the past but of the future.
So I am bound to be misunderstood,
misinterpreted,
condemned,
hindered in every possible way .
There are twenty-five cases against me in the courts.
The government goes on inventing any kind of case against me
-- a man who never leaves his room....
What crimes can I commit?
Twenty-five cases against a man who never leaves his room!
Just think
-- if I were moving outside,
they would have invented at least one thousand cases against me.
They have to be forgiven for the simple reason that they cannot understand;
in their own minds they are doing something very right.
They think of me as a destructive force,
and in a way they are right:
I am here to destroy the whole conditioning whether it is Indian or German or Jewish, whether it is Christian or Mohammedan or Buddhist.
My work consists of destroying the conditioning
and
making man free of all conditioning.
This happens every day
-- not only to Indians, to others too.
A new sannyasin, Jacob, has written a letter to me.
He is a Jew, so he is very much offended by the Jewish jokes.
Now you cannot even understand humor,
you become serious even about that,
so what to say about serious matters?
He has become a sannyasin
but deep down the Jew is there, ready to be offended.
I am going to offend EVERYBODY.
I offend Germans as much as I can, I offend Jews, I offend Indians, I offend Mohammedans.... I will offend everybody,
because that's my whole work
-- to clean you of all the shit that you have been carrying all along.
And it hurts because you think it is something very valuable that you are carrying.
The Indian goes on seeing things which are not there;
he projects or he invents or he tries hard to find something.
The woman phoned down to the hotel manager.
"I'm up here in room 5110,"
she shouted angrily,
"and I want you to know there is a man walking around in the room across the way with not one stitch of clothes on and his shades are up."
"I will send the house detective up right away, madam,"
said the manager.
The detective entered the woman's room, peered across the way, and said,
"You're right, madam, the man hasn't any clothes on, but his window sill covers him from the waist down no matter where he is in his room."
"Indeed?"
yelped the lady.
"Stand on the bed! Stand on the bed!"
The lady must have been Indian.
But Indians are everywhere;
they are not only in India,
they are not confined to India, remember.
Wherever repressive people are, there are Indians.
They can be in England,
they can be in Italy,
they can be in Spain,
they can be anywhere.
The Indian mind represents the repressive mind.
The woman was calling collect.
"Would you repeat the name, please?"
said the telephone operator.
"Yes, Alice. A-L-I-C-E. A as in 'adultery', L as in 'lust', I as in 'incest', C as in 'copulation', E as in 'erotic'...."
Now, what to say about this woman?
She must be carrying a monster within herself.
And that is the situation in India:
everybody has repressed so much,
there is so much pus inside the soul,
that when they hear or read about me they feel hurt.
The hurt comes
because they are carrying wounds within themselves.
And it always hurts
if you go to the surgeon:
he has to squeeze the pus out of your wounds,
only then can the wounds heal.
And I am a surgeon,
my compassion does not allow me to leave you as you are.
Whatsoever the cost to me,
whatsoever the risk to me,
I am determined to expose your wounds to you
-- because once you know your wounds,
once your wounds are exposed,
brought to the surface,
they immediately start healing.
And India carries great wounds:
it is not only physically poor today,
it is spiritually poor too.
because that is the only shelter for the Indian ego that,
"We are spiritual people."
And my own experience is that there is no spirituality left.
Yes, once in a while a buddha has happened in India
-- and more buddhas have happened in India than anywhere else, it is true --
but the Indian masses, the crowd, is not spiritual, not at all.
In fact because of this phenomenon of the buddhas,
the Indian masses have become hypocrites.
They have heard great teachings
-- they cannot follow those teachings,
because to follow them needs great effort.
They cannot follow but they can pretend;
that is cheap and easy.
So Indians have become pseudo.
Larson took Charlotte for a drive way out in the country and parked the car in a desolate stretch.
"If you try to molest me,"
said Charlotte,
"I will scream!"
"What good would that do?"
asked Larson.
"There isn't a soul around for miles."
"I know,"
said Charlotte,
"but I want to satisfy my conscience before I start having a good time."
Indians also want to have a good time,
but first they want to satisfy their conscience,
so they are screaming at me.
But slowly slowly, the sensitive, the intelligent Indians are coming closer to me.
It takes time, but the most sensitive people are bound to become part of my buddhafield.
And Indians suffer from an inferiority complex
because for one thousand years they have been slaves.
Rabindranath was never praised in India
-- condemned, criticized as much as possible
because he was a very life-affirmative person.
He even had the courage to criticize Buddha in his own way.
He was against the whole negative tradition of India.
＊
In one of his poems he says:
After twelve years Buddha comes back home
-- he has become enlightened.
He has thousands of followers;
naturally he remembers his wife, his child, his old father, and he wants to help them.
He wants to share what he has attained,
so he comes back to his palace.
Yashodhara, his wife, whom he had deserted twelve years before, is naturally very angry.
For twelve years she has been accumulating anger,
but an Indian wife, even if she is angry,
cannot show her anger to her husband, at least not in those days.
But in a very vicarious way...
she asks one question of Buddha.
It is not an historical thing,
it is a poem by Rabindranath Tagore,
his own invention
but it shows his attitude and approach.
Yashodhara asks Buddha,
"Just one question I have to ask you:
for twelve years I have waited to ask you this question.
You have become enlightened:
was it impossible to become enlightened living in the world, in the house with me?
Just one question I want to ask you:
was it absolutely necessary to escape from the world, was it not possible here in the house?
Am I more powerful than your consciousness?
Was the temptation more than the search for truth?"
And Rabindranath says Buddha bows down his head and stands silently, says nothing.
But that says everything
-- now Buddha knows it could have happened in the house too.
There was no need to desert the wife and the child and the old father and the family and the people;
there was no need.
Now he knows!
Now he knows that enlightenment has nothing to do with the mountains and the forests;
it can happen anywhere.
Rabindranath in another of his poems says,
"I don't want NOT to be born again.
I pray to God:
Give me your world again and again and again!
It is so beautiful, it is such a gift
-- I am grateful!"
Now these are very anti-Indian attitudes,
the whole hankering of India has been how to get rid of life;
it is life-negative.
Rabindranath is very life-affirmative;
he loves life and loves it tremendously.
He was condemned very much.
But when he got the Nobel Prize,
then the whole country was just full of praise.
But he refused to go to the gatherings, to the meetings, which were arranged to praise him. He said,
"This is not praise for me
-- you are praising the Nobel Prize.
You can take the certificate and the medal and garland it and do whatsoever you want
-- I am not going to come!"
He got the Nobel Prize for the book
GITANJALI -- offering of songs --
which he had written twenty years before.
In India nobody praised it
because it is very life- affirmative,
but once the Nobel Prize was given for GITANJALI,
GITANJALI was the greatest thing that had happened to India.
Then the same people started praising it.
India suffers from a great inferiority complex;
for one thousand years it has been a slave.
So don't be worried,
I know how things are going to happen.
First, more and more intelligent, sensitive, alert Western people are bound to come to me.
Once they are here, more and more, in thousands,
Indians are going to follow suit
-- that is because of an historical accident one thousand years old.
Whatsoever is done by the West,
India becomes suspicious that it must be right.
First it reacts: "How can it be right?"
because it goes against its tradition.
Then, slowly slowly, it HAS to compromise.
So I am not worried about it, not at all.
Let the seekers come from every nook
and corner of the earth
and sooner or later
you will find India also coming closer and closer to me.
But they are always late in everything.
They have been missing the train for five thousand years
-- that has become their habit.
They can't be pioneers,
they have forgotten how to be pioneers.
They can only be followers.
And this work is pioneer work,
something immensely new is being tried here.
India WILL listen to it, at least I hope so.
But you need not be worried about it.
＊ ＊ ＊
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means "right remembrance".
”正しく想起する”
meditation & love
osho samadhi
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means "right remembrance".
”正しく想起する”
meditation & love
osho samadhi
