Question 1: 

Osho,

Is it true that whatsoever the master says or does is simply a device to transform the disciple?

 

 

 

Narendra, it is one of the most impossible things in the world to indicate, to explain the ultimate truth. 

 

The experience is beyond words. And the difficulty is, we have nothing else to communicate with; words are our only means of communication. 

 

But the ultimate has to be said, it has to be pointed at; it is an intrinsic necessity of the experience itself. The moment you know it, at that very moment a great desire to share it arises too; they cannot be separated. 

 

A small story will help. 

 

Gautama the Buddha became enlightened. He came to know the very essence of reality - not only to know, but to experience; not only to know... he became it. And the first question that arose in his mind was, "How am I going to express it? It is too vast. The whole sky... perhaps even the sky is not the limit, and the words are so small. It is so deep that even oceans are not so deep; and words... 

 

they don't have any depth. It is multi-dimensional. Words are linear, one dimensional. How to bring this strange experience to those who are groping on the path, just the way I was groping for millions of lives?" 

 

It is natural that a compassion should arise, because those who are groping are not strangers, they are fellow travelers. You are blessed that you have found the door. Now don't be hard; somehow make the deaf listen, the blind see. Make the words dance and sing and express the ecstasy - but how? 

 

And there is a great dilemma: On the one hand there is compassion, pulling you towards the other seekers. And there is a diametrically opposite pull to remain silent because it is so beautiful to be silent, so blissful, such a benediction. The experience wants you to drown yourself completely in it and the compassion wants you to stay on the shore a little more and shout from the rooftops of the houses to those who are deaf. Perhaps somebody may hear. 

 

For seven days Buddha remained silent. He could not decide what to do. It was easier to remain silent and enjoy the sweetness of the experience and not to bother about others - but it was cruel, it was violent, it was not right for a man of heart. But the trouble was, even if he should decide to express, there are no words in human language which can bring the ultimate experience. In communication, explanation, there is no argument to prove it. The only argument is to experience it. If you ask for proof before the experience, there is no way; it cannot be proved. 

 

Puzzled, he remained silent. 

 

The story is tremendously beautiful, but remember it is a parable, it is not history. 

 

The gods in heaven.... 

 

Buddhism does not believe in A god because that is too much a fascist idea. Buddhism believes in gods, a more democratic approach - and each human being ultimately has to become a god; that is the flowering of your potential. Those who have flowered before have become gods; there is no qualitative difference between you and them. They have not created the world. Once they were the same as you are, in the same way ignorant, the same way blind, but they have found their way and they have blossomed, their spring has come. 

 

So in Buddhism the word 'god' is simply an evolutionary term. Man evolves into a god - not that God makes man; man is not a creation of God. God is the ultimate opening of the lotus of your being. 

 

Each being in the world is destined to become a god one day, sooner or later. 

 

So the gods in heaven were waiting for seven days. They were the only ones in the whole of existence who knew that Gautam had come home, and they all wanted him to speak - because rare is the chance, unique is the opportunity when somebody comes to such a glory, such a blessedness. 

 

The flower should not disappear without leaving its fragrance all around. Gautama should speak. 

 

But seven days had passed, and he was going deeper and deeper and sinking within himself. Afraid - because it has happened to many; those who have known have never said a word... not to be hard on them, it is really difficult - a few gods representing the whole galaxy of gods came down to Gautam Buddha. 

 

I was sitting under the same tree thirty years ago, thinking about the story - a poor place, a small river, the Niranjana. The place must have seen its golden time when Buddha became enlightened on Niranjana's river bank. And on the seventh day the gods came and prayed to him, "Please, remember your teachings about compassion. This is the moment to show compassion. Speak! 

 

Whatever you have experienced, give words to it, give wings to it, let it reach to those who are thirsty." 

 

Gautam Buddha said to them, "These seven days I have been struggling, without coming to any conclusion. The problem is, even if I say it I know it has not been said. It is so vast - language is so poor, and it is so rich. Now it is not my fault; even if something goes into the words it will not reach people. Their minds are so full of rubbish, they will interpret it. Who is there to listen? For listening, innocence is needed. 

 

"Here, unfortunately, in this country everybody is so knowledgeable that you cannot find a single person in the whole country who can say, 'I don't know.' He is willing to give a discourse on god, on heaven and hell... ten thousand years' knowledge has been gathering and being transferred from one generation to another generation, layer upon layer. Every mind has become so full of knowledge that nobody is ready to listen." 

 

So Buddha said, "It is better just to be silent." 

 

The gods went into a nearby bamboo grove to discuss what to do. "What he is saying is right, but somehow he has to be convinced to speak, because one never knows when another person is going to become enlightened again. We can understand his difficulty, but we cannot allow him to remain silent. It is very, very difficult to find such a cultured, articulate individual who becomes enlightened. He will find some way." 

 

They came back, and they found a little loophole in Buddha's argument. They said, "You are right as far as ninety-nine percent of people are concerned, or even 99.9 percent of people are concerned; you are right. But what about the .1 percent of people? You cannot deny that there may be one person who may listen to you. There may be one person in the whole world who may be transformed by your words, and if you don't speak, he will go on groping in darkness - he is just on the boundary line, needs a little push. Don't be so hard. Just for a few individuals, speak." 

 

Narendra, your question is: Are the words and the works of all the masters only devices? 

 

Yes, they are only devices, devices to bring you closer to truth. There is no direct way to transfer it; hence, an indirect way has to be found. 

 

That's what a device is - an indirect way. You think you are doing one thing; the master is planning for something else to happen indirectly. 

 

For example, I am speaking to you: you think this is a discourse. It is not - it is just a device. While you are listening, I am doing my work. You are playing with words. You are so absorbed, so attentive that your mind is completely engaged, and I can have a heart-to-heart contact and the mind will not disturb it. The mind will not even know about it. That heart-to-heart contact happens simply in the presence of the master, but the mind has to be engaged in some toys. 

 

Different masters have used different toys; they are devices. And later on, those devices become religions and people fight over those devices. They are not the real thing. The real thing dies with the master, disappears with the master. It was in his presence, it was in his silence, it was in his eyes, it was in his heartbeat. 

 

And you can see the difference. 

 

Gautam Buddha speaks; the same words have been repeated for twenty-five centuries by thousands of Buddhist monks, but those same words don't create the same impact. What is missing? If it was only the words, then whether Buddha speaks or Tom, Dick, Harry; whoever speaks, it makes no difference - just a gramophone record, "His Master's Voice" - the master is not there. But why don't those words create the same ringing of bells in your heart? 

 

When Jesus spoke, or Zarathustra spoke, the words were the same. Every day you use those words, but unless you have the experience your words are empty - they may be scholarly, they may be that of a great pundit, they may be of a great rabbi. 

 

This word 'rabbi' always reminds me of rubbish; I cannot get rid of that. 

 

They know the scriptures. Sometimes perhaps they are better orators than Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha; more trained speakers, with all the technological understanding. Still, their words are dead. 

 

One great Christian theologian used to come to India often. His name was Stanley Jones. Generally he was the guest of the principal of a Christian college. The principal was my friend; that's how I came to be acquainted with Stanley Jones. He had written many beautiful books, very beautiful. He was a man of tremendous scholarship. 

 

He used to give sermons, and he would keep fifteen or twenty postcard-sized cards; on each card everything that he was going to say was written in shorthand, so nobody would even know what was written on them. And he always used to speak standing, so the people could not see those cards either. He would speak; when the card was finished he would change the card to number two, to number three. 

 

One day, before he was going to speak, he had arranged his cards and had gone just to get ready in the bathroom. I mixed the numbers - the fifth was first, the first was fifth, the third was tenth, the tenth was the third. I just mixed them and put them back. He came out, took the cards - I also went with him. 

 

He started speaking. Looking at the card he could not understand, "What is happening?" - because the card said something which it was not supposed to say - "Where is the introduction?" He was almost in a nervous breakdown. And in front of a crowd of almost two thousand people, he started looking for the card with the introduction. He could not find it so he tried to start on his own, but he had never started on his own in his whole life. 

 

People were very much puzzled: they had never seen such a third-rate sermon from such a first-rate theologian - and they had all heard him before. He was perspiring, and it was winter. Somehow he finished. Neither did he know what he was saying, nor did the people understand what he was doing, what was going on. It was all irrelevant, inconsistent, unrelated, upside down, the beginning coming in the end.... Finally the introduction came: "Brothers and sisters...." 

 

 

He was very angry. Back in the principal's home he said, "I feel like killing you!" 

 

I said, "You should feel like that. But I wanted to do it for a specific reason: do you think Jesus used to have these cards with him? You are more articulate than Jesus. Jesus was uneducated, he did not even know Hebrew. He only knew the local dialect, Aramaic, which only the laborers and poor people spoke. The learned and the cultured and the rich used to speak Hebrew; Aramaic was not for the cultured and the educated. Jesus had no way of carrying these cards because he could not write, but his words have a fire. And your words are the same, but there is no fire, there is no warmth. They are not coming from your heart, they are coming from a dead corpse. And you are functioning only like a computer - you are not a theologian, just a machine." 

 

Each master has to create devices according to his own talents, capacities, genius. 

 

For example, one of the great Sufi masters, Jalaluddin Rumi, had nothing to say, he was not a man of words - but he knew how to dance. His discourse was that of dancing. He would dance, his disciples would dance, and a certain dancing which is called "whirling"... just standing on one spot and whirling. This dancing had made him enlightened, because he whirled for thirty-six hours, continuously, non-stop, till he fell down. But when he opened his eyes he was a totally different man. 

 

Whirling still goes on. There are dervishes, Sufi followers of Jalaluddin Rumi, who still go on whirling - nothing happens. It was only a device. With Jalaluddin Rumi it was alive; the man gave life to it. 

 

With him, dancing was not just dancing. Whirling with Jalaluddin Rumi, you were all slowly becoming stars circling in the sky, and with his grace, with his beauty and with his experience radiating. 

 

Truth is infectious, and there is no antidote to it yet. 

 

For twelve hundred years, dervishes have been whirling; nothing happens. You can go on whirling, but you have forgotten that the whirling was significant because there was a man as a source of radiation - while you were whirling, he was reaching to your hearts. 

 

A story is that a few people had gone hunting and they came across the camp of Jalaluddin Rumi. 

 

Just out of curiosity they looked inside the doors. It was a walled garden, and nearabout one hundred disciples were whirling with Jalaluddin Rumi. Those people thought, "These are mad people. Who has ever heard that by whirling you can get truth? In what scripture, in what religion is it written? 

 

There is no record. This man is mad, and he is driving so many young people mad." 

 

They went on. Hunting was far more significant. Obviously it was saner than to dance with Jalaluddin Rumi. 

 

After their hunting, they went back. Just out of curiosity about what had happened to the whirlers, they again looked into the door. They were surprised: those hundred people were sitting under the trees in silence, with closed eyes, as if there was nobody - absolute silence; you could hear the wind blowing through the trees. 

 

Those hunters said, "Poor fellows... finished. This happens by whirling - all energy lost. Now they are sitting like the dead; perhaps a few are already dead." 

 

Do you think they started discussing amongst themselves whether these people had achieved truth? 

 

If sitting like this with closed eyes..."What was the need of whirling, you could have sat before." They went away. 

 

The next month, they went again for hunting. Again, just out of curiosity - "Now what happened to those people - are they really dead, or still sitting, or gone, or what happened?" 

 

They looked. There was nobody, only Jalaluddin Rumi was sitting there. They laughed. They said, "Everybody has escaped; they must have understood that this man is mad. He was almost killing them by dancing, whirling. He seems to be an expert, thirty-six hours non-stop... anybody would be dead by that time! No coffee break, no tea break, just continuous whirling...." 

 

So they went in and asked Jalaluddin Rumi, "What happened to your disciples? We had come one month ago and there was a group of at least one hundred people." 

 

Jalaluddin said, "They danced, they found, they absorbed, and they have gone into the world to spread the message." 

 

"And what are you doing?" they asked. 

 

He said, "I am waiting for the second batch. My people have gone out; they will be bringing them." 

 

Yoga... are all devices; Tantra... all are devices, but only in the hands of the masters. Otherwise, everything becomes so ugly, stupid. Now yoga has become just gymnastics. And the government wants to introduce yoga in every school, just as an exercise. It is not just an exercise, it is not for the body; yes, the body is used, but it is to realize something beyond the body. 

 

Tantra in the hands of those who don't understand becomes simply sexual orgies. Otherwise, it is one of the greatest devices to transform man's energy from the lowest chakras to the highest reach, the sahasrar, the seventh chakra - where one comes to know oneself as part of the universal being. 

 

Whether physical, psychological, verbal, any kind of device, the basic need is a living master. 

 

Without a living master, everything goes poisonous, dangerous. 

 

I have developed meditations. If you are doing them on your own, they can be dangerous, because you don't know your unconscious mind, your collective unconscious mind, your cosmic unconscious mind. You have so much darkness inside, you can stir sleeping dangers in you. Only with a master is it possible not to fall into the darkness of the unconscious but to rise into the superconscious, into the collective superconscious, into the cosmic superconscious. But the way is always very narrow, a razor's edge. 

 

You need someone who knows the way not only intellectually, but existentially. 

 

- Osho, "The Osho Upanishad, Discourse #27, Q1"