Question 2
Osho,
To be a disciple has always meant to me to follow you, to be under your guidance, as if not to have a self of my own. i was never aware of the fact that being a disciple is to be as you are, and to allow your presence, your eyes, and your actions to put light on my being present, on my actions, on my ability to see clearly what is happening inside.
Is there another word to describe this relationship with you? disciple doesn't seem appropriate.
Anand Asimo, in the first place, your idea of being a disciple is not right. You say, "To be a disciple has always meant to me to follow you." I have been saying almost every day not to follow me; follow your own consciousness! And the word `disciple' comes from the same root as discipline; its basic meaning is learning. Follow your consciousness, follow your own light; and if you can learn anything from me, don't believe it -- experiment with it. If it proves right to you, it is yours, not mine.
Your idea of a disciple is not right: "To be under your guidance, as if not to have a self of my own..." Do you hear me or not? I'm saying that you should have your own self, your own individuality; that here you are not expected to surrender yourself, or your individuality, and become a slave, a spiritual slave. All the religions have been doing that for centuries: making millions of people spiritual slaves -- which is the greatest slavery.
My insistence has been that, at the most, you are my fellow traveler; we are on the same journey. Maybe I am a step ahead of you, and my experience can help you to take that one step. But there is no insistence that you have to take that step, because it may not be suitable to you, to your individuality.
In the light of my experience, you have to find your own way. My experience can only give you hints.
My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don't have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.
Because of your wrong conception, the second part of your question arises: "I was never aware of the fact that being a disciple is to be as you are." No, that is not right either. You are not to be as I am, or as Jesus Christ is, or as Gautam Buddha is.
You have to be yourself. Existence never repeats. That's why, in twenty-five centuries, there has not been another Gautam Buddha and there never will be again. Existence is so creative, so innovative that it need not repeat an old model.
It happened once... a super-rich man purchased a painting of Picasso for one million dollars. Naturally, he asked a critic of paintings, "Is it authentic? -- because if not, I'm wasting one million dollars."
The critic said, "About this painting, I can say with an absolute guarantee that it is authentic. It is Picasso."
But the rich man said, "I would like to give you your fee, but only if you take me to Picasso and he confirms that it is actually his painting. I want to be absolutely certain."
The critic said, "I was staying with Picasso when he did this painting but if you insist, we can go. He is one of my friends."
They went to Picasso, and Picasso flatly denied that it was authentic. The critic said, "This is too much. I was present when you were painting this."
Picasso's girlfriend was also present and she said, "Why you are lying? I was also present when you were painting it."
Picasso said, "Who has said that I did not paint it? But it is not authentic."
They were all puzzled, "What does he mean, he has painted it and it is not authentic?"
Picasso said, "You are looking puzzled, but the simple fact is, I painted the same painting before. One rich man was asking for a painting, and I had no new ideas so I simply painted again an old idea. The authentic painting is still in the gallery in Paris; this is only a copy. It does not matter who made the copy. Somebody else could have made it or I could have made it, but it is a copy -- it is not new, an original. Hence I cannot say it is authentic."
His sense of authenticity and originality is very clear. Existence is always original and always authentic. It never creates two persons exactly the same.
You don't have to be like me or like anybody else. That is not disciplehood, that is becoming a carbon copy. And to be a carbon copy is one of the ugliest things in the world. But all the religions have been doing that -- creating carbon copies, calling them great saints. They are simply fake, actors, they are simply acting. How can you have the heart of Jesus ? How can you have the perceptivity of Jesus? How can you have the courage...? You can pretend. You can have hair like Jesus, you can have the beard, you can carry a cross. You can even start believing that you are Jesus Christ.
One man in America started believing that he was Abraham Lincoln. Every effort was made, but he would stutter just the way Abraham Lincoln used to stutter and he would walk the way Abraham Lincoln used to walk -- he was a little lame. And his face was very similar and he had grown the beard. The family was tired. Finally, they took him to a psychiatrist, who used a lie detector.
There exists a machine now that can detect lies. You don't know it but it may be hidden just underneath you -- you may be standing on top of it. It is like a cardiogram. A few questions are asked -- very simple, no possibility for lying -- such as "What do you think, is it day or night?" And then the man naturally says, "It is day."
"What do you think, are the trees green or blue?" The man naturally says, "They are green." A few questions were asked in which he could not lie, and the detector was making a harmonious graph. Then suddenly the psychiatrist asked him, "Are you Abraham Lincoln?"
The man was getting tired; everybody was making a laughingstock of him. The family thought that he had gone insane and he was being dragged to this doctor, to that psychoanalyst. So finally he dropped the idea. He thought, "It is better to lie." He said, "I am not Abraham Lincoln." The family was surprised. But the lie detector said that he was lying, because deep in his heart he knew perfectly well he was Abraham Lincoln.
Copying, imitation, can go so deep. Although he was saying that he was not Abraham Lincoln -- and he was not Abraham Lincoln -- the machine was detecting his heartbeats and making a graph, so suddenly when he said, "I am not Abraham Lincoln," the graph went berserk. It lost its harmony. When the graph was taken out and the psychoanalyst studied it he said, "My God, unless he gets assassinated this man is not going to change."
Only assassination would prove whether he was Abraham Lincoln or not. But what would be the point -- after assassination what is the need of any proof? In fact, my feeling is if that man had been assassinated and if he had had a few minutes before dying, he would have said, "Look, I have been telling all you idiots that I am Abraham Lincoln. Now the final act has come. I am assassinated."
You are filled with wrong ideas. But those wrong ideas are very prevalent down the centuries.
"... And to allow your presence, your eyes and your actions to put light on my being present, on my actions, on my ability to see clearly, what is happening inside..." That is all imitation, that is all destructive; that's how man has been destroyed, that is how the whole of humanity has been enslaved.
You are just to be a friend to me, neither a believer, nor a follower, nor an imitator -- just a friend. You have to listen to me and experiment. I may be right, I may be wrong; it is your experiment which is going to decide. It is only your experimentation with yourself that will bring authentic growth, consciousness, enlightenment. There is no other way. There has never been.
And now you are asking: "Is there another word to describe this relationship with you?" What relationship? I have been against all relationships -- just friendliness, not even friendship. That word `friendship' gives a distant echo of some relationship. Just friendliness, that's enough; there is no need for more. Now you need a new name to describe this relationship? I don't have any relationship with anybody.
You are here out of freedom, out of love, out of friendliness. Why drag into it the dirty word, `relationship'? And to you, `disciple' does not seem appropriate, because of that relationship. You want to hang around my neck a little more closely. Just have mercy on me. It is going perfectly well: you are yourself, I am myself; you love to listen to me, I love to talk to you -- that's all.
Mick was walking down a street in Dublin, when suddenly two men pulled him into an alley. Mick put up a terrific fight, but the thugs succeeded in getting him pinned down and robbed him.
When they found only thirty pence, one of the men said angrily, "You mean to say, you put up that fierce fight for a measly thirty pence? If you had sixty pence perhaps you would have killed both of us."
Mick replied, "Ah, no. I thought you were after the five hundred pounds I have hidden in my shoe."
You have been hiding your whole ideology too long. You must have thought that you are bringing a great gift in your question, but I don't accept any relationship; I have accepted the word `disciple', because it simply means a learner -- it is not a relationship.
All relationships are binding, they create trouble. You start expecting something, and the person who has allowed you to be related starts expecting something from you -- and the trouble begins. And the door to hell is not far away.
Here, no relationship exists at all. Everybody is himself. And my whole philosophy is to give you dignity, selfhood, the glory of being yourself. I am not here to make you a Christian, or a Hindu or a Buddhist.
My whole effort and love is to make you just yourself. It is easy to copy. It is difficult to be original. But unless you are original, your life will not have any juice.
- Osho, “The Rebel, #2”