Not Enough to Love the Master Because that May Become a Consolation – Osho

Need we love enlightenment – “The Great Matter” – For enlightenment’s sake? Is it enough to love the master and want more than anything to “requite his kindness”?

Maneesha, you cannot love enlightenment, you cannot hate enlightenment. These are not possible ways of approaching enlightenment. You can be enlightened or not, there is no question of loving enlightenment or not loving enlightenment. And it is not enough to love the master because that may become a consolation: that you are with the master, you love the master, what else is needed?

Loving the master has only one meaning – that you open up to such a point that the master can hit and cut like a sword all the barriers to your enlightenment.

You will not allow anybody to come too close without trust. To be with a master simply means to be defenseless; if he cuts off your head, you will still be grateful. And he has to cut off much more than your head. He has to cut all your mind activities; he has to cut all your heart feelings. Unless thoughts and feelings disappear, you cannot be absolutely silent.

If you love the master, this is not the end; it is just the beginning of a process. The master himself is a device. On your own, it will be very difficult. But if you trust someone – and you can feel that he has arrived – you can open your heart, there is no fear.

The master is pure love, not addressed to anybody in particular. You can open to the master, exposing yourself, not hiding behind thoughts, theories, philosophies or religions. Just open and expose yourself with all your wounds, with all your darkness, with all your misery, with all your anger and jealousy. You can open yourself without any fear, because a master never judges. A master has no judgment, he simply loves. And out of his love, he cuts all the barriers and leaves you alone like a flame. There is nothing that you have to do – just your dancing flame is enough gratitude.

In your enlightenment, the master has again become enlightened. As each disciple becomes enlightened, the master becomes again and again enlightened; and with the sheer joy of a gardener when each of his plants start blossoming. Just watch his eyes – all those colors, all those flowers dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun – and how long he has been waiting! You are my garden. I will wait until you gather courage, and this courage means disappearing into the soil, losing yourself in complete let-go.

Enlightenment is not somewhere else. It is hiding behind your seed, inside you. You just have to trust. If you trust in yourself, the master is not needed. But because the society has created you in such a way that you cannot trust yourself, you are always divided – to do it or not to do it, to be or not to be – your mind is continuously wavering. You need someone unwavering. It is almost like surgery; you cannot do surgery on yourself, it will be very difficult, almost impossible. You will need someone else and you will have to trust because he is opening your heart or opening your brain and who knows what kind of man he is. But ordinarily you do trust a surgeon even though you do not know him. The function of the master is far more deep. It needs a very conscious love and trust on the disciple’s side because the master is going to tear down all your personality and shatter all your mind habits to bring out the hidden flame with all its splendor. You don’t have to love it. You will rejoice, you will dance, you will sing, you will share, you will now love all that surrounds you.

Maneesha, even gratitude is not needed; it comes on its own. With your enlightenment your gratitude comes on its own accord. The West is absolutely unaware of why in the East disciples touch the feet of the master.

One day a man came and wanted to touch Gautam Buddha’s feet and he said, “Wait. It is not yet time.”

The man said, “What do you mean, not yet time?”

Buddha said, “Your hands are empty. Just wait a little until I can see that your hands are full of gratitude. But nothing has happened yet in you which will bring gratitude of its own accord. When it does – without any effort – your head will want to touch the feet of your master.” The master has been working without any reward. You cannot pay him, you cannot do anything in response to all that has happened to you through him. Gratitude is a very helpless awareness: “At the most, I can touch your feet.”

When Sariputta became enlightened, one of the great disciples of Gautam Buddha, he did not even touch his feet. He simply touched the dust near his feet.

Buddha said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “To touch your feet seems to be too much. It is enough to touch the dust under your feet.”

Sariputta says this even though he is enlightened, but he also understands that nothing can be done in return. There is no way to repay it. All that we can do is show our gratitude.

-Osho

From Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt, Discourse #5

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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