VBT – Meditation 32.4
A Hug From The Master
Not a single word of teaching, but initiation happened just by a look, and a deeper mystery opened just by a smile. A hug from the master became the certificate.
This was Junnaid’s whole life, and he transformed hundreds of people. And all that he knew was: Sit down – first, a gesture. Then after three years of waiting it becomes a growing intensity; waiting becomes almost your whole life. And then, suddenly he looks at you and your whole life is filled with a new light. You are bathed, you are purified. You have passed through the test; you have been accepted.
And Junnaid continued to do the same, because he said, “This is all that I have learned from my master,” and he created great people. The greatest of them was al-Hillaj Mansoor, of the same category as Gautam Buddha or Chuang Tzu or Basho or Bodhidharma.
But he has nothing to say. He has something to convey – words are not necessary.
The seeker of truth has to show his credentials, his ability to wait, his capacity to be patient, because the journey is long and the path is very narrow. A master accepts a disciple only when he can see the sincerity of the heart, the risk, the danger of going into aloneness… When the master is convinced that the person is capable of all these, he is accepted as a disciple.
You don’t have to be worried: it is not so easy to be accepted by a master. And if you don’t want to be a sannyasin…perhaps you thought that sannyasins are also a kind of religion; perhaps this is also a new movement, enrolling people. It is not. If you are searching for the truth, whether you know it or not you are a sannyasin. If you are ready to drop all your conditioning, you are a sannyasin. If you meditate and raise your consciousness to its highest potential, you are a sannyasin. It does not matter whether you know the meaning of the word ‘sannyasin’ or not.
The ancient meaning of the word ‘sannyasin’ was one who leaves the world in search of truth. My own meaning is, one who lives in the world and yet goes on searching for truth. Because where can you go? Everywhere is the world.
I cannot understand where those people were going, leaving the world. To the Himalayas? It is also part of the world, part of our geography. Where are those people going to find a place outside the world?
There is nothing outside the world. Everything is inside the world, and there is no way to get out of it. The only way is to go into yourself, and you are out of it. If the world is not inside you – no desire, no longing, no will to power – if all this nonsense has disappeared from your inner world and it is utterly pure emptiness, you are out of the world. That is the only place which is not in the world.
But as far as your body is concerned it will be in the world. I have always wondered where those people used to go. Wherever they go, they will find some kind of world.
Tags: A Hug From The Master
