I am familiar with the master disciple relationship after years of being around you.
Could you please comment on the disciple-disciple relationship?
There is no such thing. Disciples in the past have created organizations. That was their relationship, that “we are Christians,” that “we are Mohammedans,” that “we belong to one religion, to one faith and because we belong to one faith, we are brothers and sisters. We will live for the faith and we will die for the faith.”
All organizations have arisen out of the relationships between disciples. In fact, two disciples are not connected with each other at all. Each disciple is connected with the master in his individual capacity. A master can be connected with millions of disciples, but the connection is personal, not organizational.
Disciples don’t have any relationship. Yes, they have a certain friendliness, a certain lovingness. I am avoiding the word ‘relationship’ because that is binding. I am not calling it friendship even, but ‘friendliness’ – because they are all fellow travelers walking on the same path, in love with the same master, but they are related to each other through the master. They are not related to each other directly.
This has been the most unfortunate thing in the past: that disciples became organized, related amongst themselves, and they were all ignorant. And ignorant people can only create more nuisance in the world than anything else. All the religions have done exactly that.
My people are related to me individually. And because they are on the same path, certainly they become acquainted with each other. A friendliness arises, a loving atmosphere, but I don’t want to call it any kind of relationship.
We have suffered too much because of disciples getting directly related to each other, creating religions, sects, cults, and then fighting. They cannot do anything else. At least with me, remember it: you are not related to each other in any way at all. Just a liquid friendliness, not a solid friendship, is enough – and far more beautiful, and without any possibility of harming humanity in the future.
-Osho
From Beyond Enlightenment, Discourse #2, Q2
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In today’s world liquid friendliness is urgently required. Just the idea of live and let live will be sufficient 🙏🙏. Thank you so much Premji for keeping us in your world 🙏
Yes, such a beautiful phrase, “liquid friendliness.”