TO BE IMPRESSED BY SOMEONE IS TO BECOME IMPURE AND UNNATURAL. BUT WITHOUT BEING IMPRESSED BY MASTER’S QUALITY AND WORDS, HOW CAN A SEEKER BECOME HIS DISCIPLE?
If you are impressed by words and personality you can never become a disciple; you will become an imitator. And a disciple is not an imitator. But I understand your trouble – you know only one way of being related, and that is, being impressed. That’s what the society has done to you. If you are impressed, you think you are related. Then you don’t know how to become a disciple. You know only how to become a student, a shadow phenomenon.
When you listen to a master, forget about being impressed. When you listen to him, just listen. Be with him, open – don’t try to judge either way. Whatsoever he is saying, you simply be open, listen, allow it and allow him to penetrate you, but don’t judge. Don’t say, ‘Yes, it is right,’ because then you are impressed. If you say, ‘No, this is not right,’ then you are trying not to be impressed. One is a positive impression, another is a negative impression, and both ways will be wrong.
Don’t say yes to him, don’t say no to him. Why can’t you just be with him without saying yes or no? Listen, watch, allow things to happen. If you say yes, that yes means: now you are ready to imitate. If you say no it means: no, you are not going to imitate him, you are going somewhere to imitate somebody else. You have some other guru, some other Master whom you will imitate. This man is not for you. You are seeking somebody who can become an ideal for you, and you can become a shadow. And you can find many – many enjoy becoming the ideals because ego feels very, very good. When so many people imitate a person, it feels wonderful for the ego – ‘I am the ideal of so many people. I must be absolutely right, otherwise why are there so many people following him?’ The greater the crowd behind a man, the more strong the ego becomes. So there are people who would like you to imitate but master is not one of them, he is just the opposite. He doesn’t enjoy your imitation. Once you start, he feels very sorry for you. He discourages it in every way. Don’t imitate him. Just watch, listen, feel. In this listening, watching, feeling, just being aware here with him, by and by your energy will start falling on your own center. Because listening to him, the mind stops. Watching, the mind stops. Being with him, open, the mind stops. In that stopping of the mind, the phenomenon is happening – you are going back to the source of your own being, you are falling to your own center. The disturbance of the mind is not there; suddenly you gain a balance, you are centered.
And that is what he would like. From that falling to your own source and center will arise your life. Not because of the impressions that he leaves on you; he doesn’t want to leave any impressions. And if they are left, he is not responsible. You must have done something yourself. You must be clinging to those words, impressions. It is subtle just to be without judgment, just to be listening, watching, being, sitting with him.
His talking is nothing but an excuse to help you to sit with him, to help you to be with him. He knows, because he can sit in silence, but then your mind will chatter. You will not be silent. So he has to talk so that your mind is not allowed to chatter. You become engrossed, involved in listening. The mind stops. In that gap you reach to your own source. He is to help you to find your center, and this is the real discipleship. It is really totally different to what people think that discipleship is. It is not following, it is not imitating, it is not making an ideal of the Master. It is nothing of that sort. It is to allow the Master to help you to fall toward your own center.
TO DO THAT WHICH FITS YOUR OWN NATURE. BUT WE HAVE DIFFICULTY KNOWING WHETHER WHAT WE DO IS OUR NATURE OR OUR EGO. HOW DOES ONE DISTINGUISH THE VOICE OF ONE’S NATURE FROM THE MANY VOICES OF THE EGO?
Whenever you listen to the voice of the ego, sooner or later there will be trouble.
You will fall into the trap of misery. This you have to watch: ego always leads into misery, always, unconditionally; always, categorically, absolutely. And whenever you listen to nature, it leads you to a well-being, a contentment, a silence, a bliss. So this should be the criterion. You will have to make many errors; there is no other way. You have to watch your own choice, from where the voice is coming, and then you have to see what happens – because the fruit is the criterion.
When you do something, watch, be alert. And if it leads to misery, then you know well that it was ego. Then the next time, be alert, don’t listen to that voice.
If it is nature, it will lead you towards a blissful state of mind. Nature is always beautiful, ego is always ugly. There is no other way but trial and error. I cannot give you a criterion so that you can judge everything, no. Life is subtle and complex and all criteria fall short. You will have to make your own efforts to judge. So whenever you do something, listen to the voice from within. Make a note of it, of where it leads. If it leads to misery, it was certainly from the ego.
If your love leads to misery, it was from the ego. If your love leads to a beautiful benediction, a blessedness, it was from nature. If your friendship, even your meditation, leads you to misery, it was from the ego. If it were from nature everything would fit in, everything would become harmonious. Nature is wonderful, nature is beautiful, but you have to work it out.
Always make a note of what you are doing and where it leads. By and by, you will become aware of that which is ego and that which is nature; which is real and which is false. It will take time and alertness, observation. And don’t deceive yourself – because only ego leads to misery, nothing else. Don’t throw the responsibility on the other; the other is irrelevant. Your ego leads to misery, nobody else leads you into misery. Ego is the gate of hell, and the natural, the authentic, the real that comes from your center, is the door to heaven. You will have to find it and work it out.
If you work it out diligently, soon you will be absolutely certain of what is from nature and what is from the ego. Then don’t follow the ego. In fact, then you will by yourself not be following the ego. There will be no need to make an effort; you will be simply following the natural. The natural is Divine. And in nature the supernature is hidden. If you follow the natural, by and by, by and by, slowly and slowly, without even making any noise, suddenly one day the natural will disappear and the supernatural will appear. Nature leads to God, because God is hidden in nature.
First, be natural. Then you will be flowing in the river of the natural. And one day the river will fall into the ocean of the supernatural.
THERE IS NO NEED TO TAKE SHORTCUTS. ARE NOT MEDITATIONS SHORTCUTS? MASTER SAYS THAT MEDITATIONS ARE FOR TAKING AN IMMEDIATE JUMP.
The immediate jump is the longest way. Because to be ready for the immediate jump, it will take many years, even many lives to be ready for it. So when the Master says ‘immediate jump’, do you take it immediately? Have you taken the jump? Just by his saying so you have not taken it. He says ‘immediate’, but the immediate for you may take many lives.
A jump is never a shortcut, because a jump is not a way. There are long ways and there are short ways. A jump is not a way at all; it is a sudden phenomenon. To be ready for the jump means to be ready to die. To be ready to jump means to be ready to jump into the unknown, into the insecure, into the uncharted. That readiness will take many, many years.
Don’t think that an immediate jump is a shortcut – it is not. Shortcuts are when somebody says to you, ‘Take a mantra, do the mantra for fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes in the evening, and then you need not do anything else. Within fifteen days you will already be a meditator.’
In the West people are so conscious of time that they are always victims.
Somebody comes and says, ‘This is the shortcut. My way is not the bullock-cart way but the jet way,’ as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says. He says, ‘I give you a shortcut, just a mantra to repeat for fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen in the evening. And within two weeks, you are already enlightened.’
In the West people are in so much of a hurry: they want instant coffee, they want instant sex, they want instant God; shortcut, packaged, everything prefabricated.
Time is too much in the Western head, too much, and that is creating many tensions inside. Anybody can come and say, ‘This is the panacea and everything can be solved within just fifteen minutes.’ And what do you do? – You sit and repeat a mantra.
The East has been repeating mantras for millions of years and nothing has happened. And within two weeks of TM training, you become enlightened?
These types of stupid things continue because you are in a hurry. Somebody or other will exploit you.
Osho was reading a book, a collection of small essays by Richard Church. The name of the book is A STROLL BEFORE THE DARK. In that book he remembers one incident that happened to one of his friends.
A friend who was much too time-obsessed was travelling by train. Suddenly he became aware that he had forgotten his wristwatch, so he was very worried. The train stopped at a small station. The friend looked out of the window as the porter was passing. He asked the porter about the time. The porter said, ‘I don’t know.’ The friend said, ‘What! You, a railway man and you don’t know what time it is? Don’t you have a clock in the station?’ The porter said, ‘Yes the clock is there. But why should I be distressed with time?’ The porter said, ‘Why should I be distressed by time? The clock is there; that is none of my business.’
It’s wonderful, the porter saying, ‘Why should I be distressed with time?’ People are distressed with time, and in the West much too distressed – time and time and time. They say that time is money, and time is flowing, going out of the hand continuously, therefore a shortcut is needed. Somebody immediately supplies the demand.
Time is not running short. Time is eternal; there is no hurry. Existence moves in a very lethargic way. Existence moves very slowly, just like the Ganges flows in the plains – slow, as if not flowing at all. Still it reaches the ocean.
Time is not short, don’t be in a panic. Time is enough. You relax. If you relax, even the longest path will become the shortest. If you are in a panic, even the short path will become very long – because in panic, meditation is impossible.
When you are in a panic, in a hurry, the very hurry is the barrier. When the Master says, ‘Take the jump’ – and you can take the jump immediately – the Master is not talking about shortcuts or longcuts. Master is not talking about the way at all, because a jump is not a way. A jump is a courageous moment – it is a sudden phenomenon.
But Master doesn’t mean that you can do it right now. He will go on insisting, ‘Take the jump immediately, as soon as possible.’ This insistence is just to help you to prepare for it. Some day you may be ready. Somebody may be ready right now – because you are not new; for many lives you have already been working. When the Master says, “Take the immediate jump,’ there may be someone who has been working for many lives, and just standing on the brink, on the abyss, and afraid. He may gather courage and take the jump. Somebody who is very far away, thinking that the immediate jump is possible, will gather hope and start walking.
When the Master says something, it is a device to help many sorts of people in many sorts of situations. But the path is not a shortcut, because no path can be a shortcut.
The very word is deceptive. Life knows no shortcuts because life has no beginning. God knows no shortcuts. God is not in a hurry – eternity is there.
You can work it out slowly. And the more patiently, the more slowly, the more unhurriedly you work, the sooner you will reach. If you can be so patient, so infinitely patient that you are not worried about reaching at all, you may reach right now.
Tags: Life Is Subtle Patanjali
