No Lust

Truly Wise

Remember, if you are a student here you are not very wise. To be a student here is to be unintelligent. This is not a school. Life is available here – but you have to be a disciple. To be a disciple means to be courageous enough to come close to a master, whatsoever the cost. The disciple means the one who can take the risk of being close to a master. It is a risk – a risk because you will die. The bud will die, only then the flower can come. The seed will die, only then the tree can come. You will have to die, only then the divine can bloom in you.

The Lord said: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has learned from Dipankara? A great seeker has written: “I went to the wise for answers. There were many wise men, each one with his answer. It was by that that I came in time to see that they betrayed themselves. But there were also a few I happened upon who were otherwise, one or two, who sat with a serene vitality, who smiled at my questions, and in face of my insistence for answers, generously gave me further questions.

There were moments with them that I forgot all about wisdom and smiled as carelessly as fools and children only can. I got no answers from the truly wise. It was lack of wisdom that had sent me to the wise. How then could I have understood anything wise, even if it was sayable, even if it was said? The truly wise were too true to give wise answers.”

The truly wise gives you his being, gives himself. The truly wise simply makes himself available to you, and if you are courageous you can drink and eat out of his being. That’s what Jesus means when he says to his disciples, “Eat me! Drink me!” The master has to be eaten, the master has to be absorbed, digested; only then will you stumble upon your own truth. There is nothing to learn – no dharma to learn, no doctrine to learn, no philosophy to learn.

What does it mean to be a disciple?

A disciple is a rare phenomenon. It is very easy to be a student because the student is searching for knowledge. The student can only meet the teacher, he can never meet the master. The reality of the master will remain hidden to the student. The student functions from the head. He functions logically, rationally. He gathers knowledge, he becomes more and more knowledgeable. Finally in his own turn he will become a teacher, but all that he knows is borrowed, nothing is really his own.

His existence is pseudo; it is a carbon-copy existence. He has not known his original face. He knows about God, but he does not know God himself. He knows about love, but he has never dared to love himself. He knows much about poetry, but he has not tasted the spirit of poetry itself. He may talk about beauty, he may write treatises on beauty, but he has no vision, no experience, no existential intimacy with beauty. He has never danced with a rose flower. The sunrise happens there outside, but nothing happens inside his heart. That darkness inside him remains the same as it was before.

He talks only about concepts, he knows nothing of truth – because truth cannot be known through words, scriptures. A student is interested only in words, scriptures, theories, systems of thought, philosophies, ideologies.

A disciple is a totally different phenomenon. A disciple is not a student; he is not interested in knowing about God, love, truth – he is interested in becoming God, in becoming truth, in becoming love. Remember the difference. Knowing about is one thing, becoming is totally different. The student is taking no risk; the disciple is going into the uncharted sea. The student is miserly, he is a hoarder; only then he can gather knowledge. He is greedy; he accumulates knowledge as the greedy person accumulates wealth – knowledge is his wealth. The disciple is not interested in hoarding; he wants to experience, he wants to taste, and for that he is ready to risk all.