I am not a teacher. I don't want to make something of you resembling some of my ideas. I don't have any idea about you. I don't carry any image that everybody should fit into. My whole approach is that each individual is unique, and nobody can predict what you are going to be. Even the master cannot predict what you are going to be, because predictions are possible only about things, not about consciousnesses. Consciousness is unpredictable. What is going to blossom in you can be known only when it blossoms.
So the master can do only one thing: he can remove everything that can stop your blossoming. Hence the master will look very hard.
The teacher will look very compassionate, because he will be giving you every guideline, he will be taking all responsibility. He will be showing you the path; he will be leading you on the path, and you have just to follow.
The master is not interested in you following him. No, just the contrary; you should not follow him, otherwise you will miss becoming yourself. Then what does he do? In fact, all his functioning is negative. He destroys your crutches, your supports. He makes you vulnerable to all kinds of fears, anxieties, challenges. This is all negative. As far as positivity is concerned, he does nothing. He is just a mirror.
He allows you to come close and see your face in his mirror. He does not want you to imitate and become his face. He wants you to look into him. He has no ideas. That means all the dust from the mirror is gone. His mirror is clean. You can come close and look, and you will find your face. The mirror simply mirrors; it is not a doing, it is not an act.
Certainly my relationship with you is unique. In the first place it is not a relationship, because what relationship can you have with a mirror? You can see your face and be thankful, be grateful -- but that is not a relationship. What relationship can the mirror have with you? There is no possibility. The mirror is simply there. It does not relate in any possible way, it simply exists.
So the relationship is unique because if you go to other religions, the master -- who is not really a master in the first place, but they call him the master -- the master, the so-called master, will have a thousand and one demands to be fulfilled because he is going to do a great job for you. I'm not doing anything for you, so I cannot demand anything from you. The 'master' will have conditions to be fulfilled. If you fail to fulfill the conditions, then the condemnation; if you fulfill the conditions, then the praise, the reward.
I cannot condemn you, I cannot reward you -- because I don't have any conditions that you have to fulfill. To be my disciple is your decision. It has nothing to do with me. To accept me as your master is your decision, it has nothing to do with me. I am not seeking converts; I am not a Christian missionary. I am not striving so that people should be converted to my way of thinking, my way of life. No, not at all. Otherwise in these thirty-five years I would have converted millions of people, with no trouble. They were ready to be converted; I was not ready to convert.
It is your decision. Always remember, whatsoever happens here is your decision.
If you are a sannyasin, it is your decision.
If you drop sannyas, it is your decision.
If you take it again, it is your decision.
I leave everything to you.
So it is a unique relationship: it is absolutely onesided; from my side there is no relationship. It has to be absolutely clear: from my side there is no relationship. From your side... and that is continually changing. When you first come, you come as a student. It is a different kind of relationship from your side. Then you just want to learn something. Being near me, slowly you understand that learning is not enough. Some experience is needed. You become a disciple, you become a sannyasin. That is your decision. You simply indicate that you want to come closer to me. What else is sannyas? Just your declaration that you would love and like to be closer to me. From your side, the student is disappearing and the disciple is appearing. And then the last stage comes, when you feel even experiencing is not enough: being.
Now see the three points. Teaching is a very faraway thing, borrowed: experience -- but it is outside you. You are the experiencer, and the experience is there: beautiful, ecstatic, blissful, but you know it is there, an object; inside, but still an object. No, you want to be at the center of your being. Then you come even closer: the disciple disappears into the devotee. Now, the devotee means from your side also the relationship has disappeared. Now you are absolutely happy just to be the way you are. You understand now why there was no relationship from my side. I am enjoying my aloneness, and you start enjoying your aloneness.
So the relationship is not static like father and son, brother and sister; it is not static. It is not like marriage. There is no law that prevents you from dropping sannyas or that forces you to be a sannyasin. Slowly you understand that your relationship also is disappearing. When you were a student there was a very strong relationship with the teacher, with the master. When you are a disciple the relationship is fragile, like a lover. When you are a devotee you have come... arrived. Now you can blossom in your aloneness.
Gratitude is there; gratefulness is there, thankfulness is there, and infinite gratitude -- but no relationship, no demand from your side or from my side. Then it is just as if two candles are burning side by side, so close that their flames become one.
-Osho, "From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, #18"