Teacher and Master

 

 

Try to understand the difference between a teacher and a Master, then the difference between a teacher and a perfect teacher. Only then will you be able to understand the difference between a Master and a perfect Master.

 

The teacher is one who teaches borrowed knowledge. He knows nothing, he has not experienced anything -- it has not happened to him -- but he has heard it, read it. He is skillful in transmitting it verbally, intellectually: he is capable of communication.

 

The perfect teacher is one who knows this: that he does not know. The teacher forgets it, tends to forget it. He starts believing in whatsoever he is teaching others. He is not only a deceiver, he is also deceived. He starts living in a deep auto-hypnotic sleep. First he convinces others, and when others are convinced, seeing their conviction he becomes convinced himself.

 

Sometimes it happens that even though he is only a teacher he may get a perfect disciple and he will see miracles happening in the disciple. Then the temptation is great to believe that he must be somebody special, extraordinary.

 

It happened in Marpa's life: Marpa went to a teacher. He was well known for his scholarship. a great pundit. and many followers, many students, many disciples were gathering around him. Marpa was in search. He went to the teacher, he surrendered to the teacher, and from that moment miracles started happening.

 

The other students were very jealous, obviously. They told everything to the teacher. The teacher himself watched him; he could not believe his eyes -- Marpa was able to walk on water. He asked Marpa, "What is your secret?"

 

He said, "YOU are my secret. I just take your name and that's enough. I say within my heart, 'My Master, take me to the other shore.'" His trust was so total that he was capable of walking on water, walking through fire.

 

Marpa's teacher tried to test him. He told him to jump from the mountain into a deep abyss. The moment he said, "Jump!" Marpa jumped. It was absolutely certain that he would die, that not even pieces of his body would be found. And when the teacher and the crowd that was watching came down, Marpa was sitting there in deep meditation, unhurt, unscratched.

 

Again the teacher asked, "What is your secret?"

 

He said, "YOU are my secret. And each time things like this happen my surrender to you goes on deepening, it goes on becoming more perfect than it was before. It was perfect before too, but there are possibilities, dimensions of even perfection becoming more perfect."

 

Seeing this, the teacher became convinced that he had some tremendous power of which he was not aware. He tried to walk on water. He said to himself, "I am the != teacher, the great teacher of Marpa, and I want to go to the other shore!" And he had to be saved because he was drowning. He could not believe his eyes! But from that moment, Marpa's own miracles disappeared. Seeing the Master drowning in the water, the power that he had created through trust evaporated.

 

It happens many times through teachers that many people start experiencing spiritual revelations. But if the teacher becomes deceived, auto-hypnotized, then he is only a teacher, a very ordinary person. [....]

 

The teacher becomes auto-hypnotized. The great teacher is one who teaches, but knowing that "It is not my own." Not only does he know it, he makes it clear to everybody that "I am just an interpreter, a commentator," that "I have studied, I am a scholar, a professor. I am teaching things about which I have no experience of my own," and who is capable of so much awareness that he never becomes deceived. Even though others start believing in him, he never believes in himself unless he starts experiencing.

 

The moment a person starts experiencing he becomes a Master. Then it is not borrowed; then it is his own authentic knowing, it is his wisdom. But not every Master is capable of bringing his wisdom to people, to those who are utterly ignorant, of bringing his light to those who are blind, who are living in darkness. The Master is one who has experienced. He is greater than the perfect teacher, but he is an arhata, in Buddhist terminology: he knows, but he cannot make it known to others.

 

If he has been a perfect teacher before, only then is it possible that he may be able to impart something of his revelation. If he has not been a perfect teacher before then it is impossible, and there is no necessity. A person can move into the world of being a Master directly; there is no necessity that he should come via being a perfect teacher. But if he has been a perfect teacher, then it will not be long before he becomes a perfect Master.

 

Out of a hundred Masters only one is a perfect Master. Ninety-nine know and in certain ways try to help people, but their ways are haphazard, their devices are primitive; what they teach looks childish. Their skill as far as teaching is concerned is very limited. They know more, far more than they are capable of teaching. The perfect Master is one who is capable of communion.

 

The perfect teacher is one who is capable of communication. the perfect Master is one who is capable of communion. He can help you through intellectual understanding, but that is not the only way and not the whole way and not necessarily successful. But he is also capable of imparting his energy to you, he is capable of imparting his flame to you. Just being with him, being in his presence, something can transpire in you. Just being close to him is enough, and whatsoever he does has a perfection about it. His devices...

 

For example, Gautam Buddha's device of vipassana is a perfect device. Twenty-five centuries have passed, but nothing has been added to it. Thousands of enlightened people have passed through it, but nobody has been able to improve upon it. k is absolutely perfect; nothing is missing. Hence Buddha is a perfect Master.

 

Patanjali is a perfect Master. Whatsoever he has done as far as Yoga is concerned seems to be the crescendo. Five thousand years have passed but his Sutras are as fresh as this morning's rose flowers. They don't become old, they can't become old. Nothing has been able to supercede his Sutras. And thousands of books on Yoga have been written in these five thousand years, but no other book has been able to impart that glow, that aliveness, that perfection. Patanjali is a perfect Master; others are only apprentices. No book reaches that perfection.

 

The same is true about Lao Tzu: his Tao, his approach to the ultimate truth seems to be impossible to improve upon. It very rarely happens that a person gives you the total perfection of a thing, but it happens.

 

It happens in other arts: Michelangelo cannot be improved upon, Leonardo da Vinci cannot be improved upon, Shakespeare cannot be improved upon. Kalidas cannot be improved upon -- these are perfect Masters There are thousands of painters, but there is something which makes Vincent van Gogh a perfect painter. Nobody comes close to him; they lag far behind. What is it that makes him perfect? It is impossible to improve upon him. Whatsoever you do will destroy its beauty, it will bring it, lower; as if the whole dimension has become exhausted and you have come to a full point.

 

There have been only very few perfect Masters. Hindus call them avataras, Jainas call them teerthankaras, Buddhists call them Buddhas. In the Western world, Jesus is a perfect Master, Moses is a perfect Master, Eckhart is a perfect Master, Francis is a perfect Master.

 

Whatsoever they have done, they have done it so totally that they have reached to the very end of that dimension. Now there is nothing more to do about it, everything is complete.

 

The teacher is dangerous because not only can he deceive others, he can become deceived himself.

 

I am tremendously happy that Kamal and Vedant were not deceived. They proved more intelligent than Satprem or Somendra -- they are getting deceived. Because something starts happening in other people, you need not presume that it is because of you; it may be just their faith. You may not be a part of it at all; it may be just their own auto-hypnotic state.

 

The great teacher has a beauty because he himself is aware and makes others always aware that "Nothing can happen through me because nothing has happened to me. Learn as much as you can learn from me as a student, but I am not a Master and you are not a disciple." Great courage is needed to be a great Master, and only if a great teacher becomes a Master is he capable of helping, because he has learned all the techniques to help. Now the experience is there; he can pour out that experience and use all his old techniques.

 

Otherwise there are many enlightened people who simply become Masters That's the difference between the ARHATAS and the bodhisattvas. Arhatas are just Masters, enlightened people. Nothing is lacking in them as far as their experience is concerned; it is the same as the experience of the bodhisattva. The only thing that is different is that the bodhisattva is capable of accepting disciples, the arhata is not capable.

 

In Buddhism there are two schools: Hinayana and Mahayana. Hinayana belongs to the world of the arhatas. Hinayana means a small boat, so small that only you can go to the farther shore; you cannot accept anybody else, otherwise not only he will be drowned, you will be drowned with him. The boat is so small...

 

Mahayana means a big ship; that is the way of the of the bodhisattva. He goes on inviting people: he creates a Noah's Ark and he goes on inviting all kinds of people to become part of his commune, his sangha, because the ship is going to leave soon. He collects thousands of people and then moves towards the farther shore. He is the great Master.

 

-Osho, "Theologia Mystica, #12, Q1"