If you look around, there are pretenders who are ready to take all your responsibilities -- of this life, of past lives, of future lives. All that you have to do is to believe in them, to follow them -- blindly. Blindness has been up to now the very foundation of religion. And that's why all the religions are against me -- because I say blindness cannot be the foundation.
Eyes are needed.
Better eyes, more insight is needed.
And for that you have to take the whole responsibility for your life.
The master can help -- and that help also, remember, is not like ordinary help. The help is something like when the sun rises in the morning and the flowers open. The sun rays don't come to each flower and knock on its doors -- "Please get up, it is time." No alarm goes around that all the birds have to be awake and start singing. Nobody orders them... just a synchronicity.
As the sun rises, something starts happening in the birds -- some joy, some life, some thrill; a song wants to burst. A peacock wants to dance, opening its tail with all the colors of the rainbow. The flowers suddenly wake up -- night is over, it is time to open their petals and release their fragrance to the fresh morning winds. The sun is not doing anything directly. Its presence is enough, and something starts happening in its presence.
The master's help is exactly like that. He has not to do something directly, because that will be interference. That will be entering into your territorial imperative; that will be a crime against you. Even though his intention is good, he cannot enter into your being; he can simply be present. And if you are open, if you are available -- and that is your responsibility; to be open, to be available, to be receptive -- then without any effort on the part of the master, things start happening within the disciple.
The master does nothing. His presence is a catalytic agent, a very indirect persuasion; something more like a whisper -- not like a gong that wakes you up, but a whisper. Just like the winds passing through the pine trees, a very silent song, a message pregnant with immense significance but without words.
He makes it available to you. Now it is your responsibility -- and your freedom -- to take it or not to take it.
So, Amrito, you are right. All the responsibility is of the disciple, and no expectations should be projected on the master; otherwise there is going to be frustration -- those expectations cannot be fulfilled. And when they are not fulfilled then you are angry at the master; then you turn against the master, then you betray the master. And he has not done anything. It was your expectation which has turned into frustration. Everything has been happening within you; the master becomes unnecessarily a target.
[....]
A few people go on for their whole lives doing the same circular route, moving from one teacher to another teacher, from one philosophy to another philosophy, never seeing a single, simple point: that if you come with expectations you cannot find the right master. To find the right master you have to be in a right attitude; that means you have to be without expectations.
Amrito, you say, "Osho, you are and we are not; or, in other words, you are not and we are." Both are true in different senses.
As far as egos are concerned, you are, I am not.
As far as the universal self is concerned, I am, you are not.
And the whole problem is that the meeting is possible in two ways. If the master is a pretender, then he is just as you are. And there is a kind of communication between you, because he is an ego, you are also an ego. He fulfills your ego, you fulfill his ego; it is a mutual arrangement.
Or, the second possibility is that the master is not as an ego; you should also become a no-ego. Then a communion happens. Then only has the master-discipleship come into existence. It is a rare flower, very rare... comes into being once in a while.
The other kind of communication is a marketplace thing, everywhere available. There are teachers in the thousands, every religion produces them. And there are students who go on thinking that they are disciples -- they learn only knowledge. The disciple has to grow into being; it has nothing to do with knowledge.
Have you ever felt that there are people with whom you feel as if your energy is sucked? You don't want to meet them, they are parasites. And there are people whom you love to meet, because when you meet them you feel more alive, more fulfilled; your energy level is higher than it was before.
So there are people who have being -- and if you come across a person who has being you will feel nourished.
And there are people who don't have being -- they are just black holes; to be with them you will feel sucked.
The teacher and the student have a certain communication, but it is superficial because it is only of words.
The master and the disciple have a communion.
It is not of words, but of a transfer of being, an exchange of life energy.
-Osho, "The Osho Upanishad, #19, Q1"