Empty Your Cup

Meaning Of Death

That’s why I say truth cannot be taught but it can be learned. But then the whole thing depends on you.

A master exists – you have to be in the presence of the master completely empty of yourself. That is the meaning of death. A disciple comes and dies before the master. That’s what surrender means. He comes and leaves himself outside the door. Where he leaves his shoes, he leaves himself there also. He comes to the master completely empty. In that very emptiness, truth is possible. In that very emptiness the master starts flowing.

The master becomes like a tremendous waterfall, falling into the valley of the disciple. From his peaks of being he reaches to the bottommost depth of the being of the disciple. And remember, he is not doing anything, it simply happens. When the valley is ready the waterfall happens of its own accord. The being of the master starts flowing towards the disciple. It is not something that the master is doing, it is not something the disciple is doing – nobody is doing anything. The master is present to the disciple, and the disciple is present to the master, and the phenomenon happens of its own accord. It is a jump of the flame of the master into the heart of the disciple. But that needs to remain open, and the disciple needs to remain empty – just the receiving end.

That’s why I say again and again that the art of disciple-hood is the art of being a feminine consciousness: receptive, allowing, not creating barriers, not closing doors, not trying to be safe and secure. Trusting. Trust is the word. And in trust, truth happens. To trust is to be ready to learn. Yes, trust is the word. To trust is to be a disciple.

If you are still thinking, then you are still in control. You have not surrendered. If you are still saying this is right and that is not right, then your mind is there, then you belong to the second part of humanity, not to the third.

Surrender simply means an understanding: Enough of this “I” — now I drop it. The moment you drop “I”, you have dropped the whole hypnosis that society has forced you to go through. The moment you drop the ego, you have dropped the state, the religion, the church, the society, the parents, the school, the university, the civilization, the culture: you have dropped all conditioning. And then suddenly you will see an upsurge of tremendous bliss arising in you. It was there, waiting – just remove the weight, and the spring can flow again.

The deeper you surrender to existence, life, nature, the more loving, the more understanding, the more insightful you become; and that insight will bring you closer to master. You will find in master, indirectly, the state of total surrender, total trust.

Surrender means to live the same way in life as a good swimmer swims in the river. Life is a river. Either you can fight or you can float; either you can push the river and try to go against the river or you can float with the river and go wherever the river leads you.

Surrender is not towards somebody; it is simply a way of life. A God is not needed to surrender to. There are religions which believe in God, there are religions which don’t believe in God, but all religions believe in surrender. So surrender is the real God.