The Perfect Master, Vol 1 Talks on Sufi Stories

When Jesus says "I am" he is simply saying that you can call it God or you can call it 1. It is the same thing -- two ways of ex-pressing the same thing.

This is far better, far superior to the Upanishadic statement that says: "Thou art that." It has accepted the duality. To deny, it has accepted. It denies; it says "Thou art that," but the duality is accepted. Jesus is far superior in his statement when he says "I am."

Moses asked God when he met him on the mountain-top, "People will ask me about you. How am I to say anything about you?"

And he said, "Just go and tell them that God says: I am that I am.

Strange words, but of great significance.

When Jesus speaks, he speaks from HIS consciousness; he pours his consciousness into it. But when it reaches you, only the empty word roaches. His spirit is lost on the way. Then you fill that empty word with your ox n spirit, and you say that you have read it in the Bible or you have read it in the Koran or in the Veda, but you are reading only yourself.

ALL scriptures function as mirrors -- you see only your face. And remember: if a monkey looks into a mirror, he is not going to find an angel there.

This man read, listened, discussed, practiced, but the doubt remained. Twenty years searching, he came across many sages but could not feel contented with any. He would not have felt contented even if God had been encountered! And maybe, who knows, he may have encountered God too -- because God comes in so many sizes and shapes....

There is a story about a great mystic:
The mystic was Mohammedan and he lived in a mosque, but he had a Hindu follower. The Hindu was a Brahmin and the Hindu would cook food for him and would bring it to the mosque, and he used to live five miles away from the mosque. And unless the Master ate, he would sit there and wait -- and the Master was a crazy man. Sometimes he would eat in the morning, some-times in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening, sometimes in the night, and the disciple would wait and he would not eat till the Master had eaten. So sometimes he had to remain hungry the whole day. And by the time he reached home he was so tired that he would think, "Tomorrow, now who wants to prepare food again?" He would fall asleep hungry.

One day the Master said, "Listen, you need not come so far. I can come there myself, so tomorrow you prepare the food and I will come. It is too hot to come, and then sometimes you have to wait the whole day -- change it now. You are ready: I will come."

The next day he prepared delicious food for the Master, because he was to come for the first time. He was thrilled. This was grace: his Master is coming to his home! He decorated the house, he threw flowers on the path... but nobody turned up, only a dog. He chased the dog out because the dog wanted to cat, and he chased and the dog would come back and would try to snatch food. He had seen many dogs, but this dog was strange. He beat the dog but he still came. He really gave him a good beating, then he saw tears coming out of she dog's eyes. And then he disappeared.

Till evening he waited, and then he thought, "This man is crazy -- he may have forgotten." So he took the food, went to the mosque -- and he saw tears in the eyes of the Master. The SAME kind of tears! He was puzzled and he said, "Why are you crying?"

And he said, "Why shouldn't I? You have beaten me so much!"

And the disciple said, "What are you talking about? I, and I can beat you? And you never came and you had promised!"

Then the disciple remembered the dog -- exactly twelve times the dog had tried to enter.

And the Master said, "You have to be capable of seeing the formless now. Don't be too much attached to the form. Why should I be thought of only in this form, in this body? Why can't you find me in other forms?"
So I say maybe this great seeker had come across God... in fact how can you avoid God? Whomsoever you come across, you always come across God. But he had great ideas, and even God could not fulfill those ideas. He remained empty, doubtful, untrusting, and the search continued.

And one day when he comes to a man who fulfills his ideas, he creates another problem. Then the Master says:

This is the Sufi approach for having contact and communion with a Master: become a disciple. Don't search for the Master: search for disciple hood. And let me repeat: the Master appears when the disciple is ready.

Chapter #2

Chapter title: There is Communion

22 June 1978 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: PERF102

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 96 mins

The first question:

OSHO, YESTERDAY YOU MENTIONED THAT TO BE A DISCIPLE ONE NEEDS TO BE IN PRAYER -- BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS PRAYER?

The experience is so enormous that it is impossible to be exact about it. It is indefinable. All definitions fall short. Each definition says something about it, but only something. Much remains unsaid.

And prayer is such a vast experience that it contains contradictions. So one can say: Prayer is silence -- and he is right, absolutely right. And another can say: Prayer is a dialogue -- and he is right too, because prayer is a dialogue in silence. Now, dialogue and silence seem to be contradictory. In dialogue you speak, in silence you hear. In dialogue you communicate, in silence you are simply there -- there is nothing to say.

What can be said to God? He knows all that you can say in the first place. You can bow down. You can celebrate. But still your bowing down, your celebration, your festivity, your thankfulness, your gratitude, they are still ways of speaking. You are trying to say something without words, because words are very small and the heart really wants to say something.

So it IS a dialogue, although silent. It is a communication in a sense, because you are there and the whole existence becomes your beloved, the whole existence becomes a 'thou'. And yet there is no 'I' and there is no 'thou' -- both disappear. Both meet and merge into one unity, one organic whole. Just as the dewdrop disappears in the ocean, you disappear. There is no separation between you and existence, so how can there be a dialogue?

Both the definitions are true. Those who say prayer is a dialogue -- Christians say that, Jews say that, Hindus say that -- they are right. But they are talking only about one fragment of the enormous experience called prayer. Buddhists say: There is no dialogue. Jainism says: There is no dialogue -- because there is no 'I' and no 'thou'. There is absolute silence. They are also right, but then it is very difficult to be exact about prayer.

It HAS to remain vague. It has to remain incomprehensible. You can have only glimpses of it, fleeting glimpses, but you cannot have the whole of prayer in your hands. It can't be reduced to a simple definition.

Just as science gives definitions, religion cannot give them. You ask science: science is exact. You ask "What is water?" and it says "H20." So simple! Nothing is left behind H20 -- all is said, because water is an object. It can be analyzed.

Prayer is subjectivity. It is not an object that can be analyzed. In fact, you cannot show your prayer to anybody. And if somebody insists that "I don't see any prayer in you," you cannot prove it either. It is like love -- less like water, more like love. That's why Jesus says: God is love. Love is also indefinable.

Always remember one thing: there are things below you and there are things above you. Things that are below you, you can be exact about them. Things that are above you, you cannot be exact about them. They are bigger than you. When prayer exists, it is not that prayer exists in you -- on the contrary, YOU EXIST IN PRAYER. Prayer is higher than you. You just vibrate in that enormous dimension, that plenitude.

But we have been taught, particularly in this century, to be exact about everything. That has destroyed many beautiful values in life, that constant desire to be exact. And if you cannot be exact about something, then the mind tries to deny it.

You cannot be exact about God, so the mind says, "Then God cannot be." You cannot be exact about love; then the mind says, "Love is just dreaming and nothing else." You cannot be exact about beauty; then the mind says, "Beauty is just fantasy. It is not a truth." But then what is left? Then the world is no more beautiful, no more loving, no more good -- because there is no more God. Then the world is empty of meaning. Not that the world is empty of meaning, but your mad desire to be exact about everything has made it empty of meaning.

Meaning is a delicate phenomenon. It is like the fragrance of a flower. You cannot catch hold of it in your hands -- but it is there, still it is there, whether you can catch hold of it or not, whether you can keep it in a safe deposit or not. It is still there!

How can you define music? If you go to define it, you will destroy it. Then it is just an arrangement of sounds, nothing more.. It is noise arranged in such a way that it no more looks noisy. Just a soothing kind of noise. Is that all that there is to music? Music is more than the notes, more than the sum total of notes.

If you go on asking this question again and again... then what is poetry? Just a certain arrangement of words? It is not. It is something that happens in a certain arrangement of words, but it is more than the certain arrangement of words itself. It is not grammar, it is not language -- it is something transcendental. It is provoked by the words. The words are used as an occasion for the poetry to happen.

And exactly that is what music is. The instruments are used, notes are used, sounds are used, for that silence that is music to happen. Between two sounds is music, and between two words is poetry, and between two lines is all that is significant. It is never in the lines but always between the lines And one has to learn to read the intervals, the gaps.

Still, a few things can be said about prayer -- but they will not be exact, so I cannot fulfill your desire. The very nature of prayer prohibits it. And to try to do something against its nature is sacrilege.

So the first thing that I can say about prayer is: a feeling of immense gratitude, a thankfulness. You are here, in this beautiful world, with these trees and rivers, mountains and stars. In this tremendous beauty you are pulsating, you are alive. This oppor-tunity you have not earned. It is a gift. Prayer is a thankfulness for this gift of life. Just to breathe is such a joy, just to open your eyes and see the greenery. Just to listen to the chirping of the birds, or the sound of running water, or the silence of the night and the velvety darkness. Or the dawn and the sun rising... we have not earned it! It has been given to us, and we have not even thanked.

Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant -- thankfulness is a must. People think that "If there is a God, then we will thank him." I tell you just the opposite: "If you start thanking, you will find him." There is no other way. If you start feeling grateful, you will find him because he happens only in that dimension of gratitude.

Just as you cannot see from the ears and you cannot hear from the eyes -- eyes can only see, ears can only hear -- exactly like that, only gratitude can find God, can feel God. Gratitude is your sensitivity for God. Prayer is that sensitivity.

Second thing: prayer is a way of living. It is not just something that you do early in the morning like a ritual. If it is a ritual, it is meaningless. If it is a ritual, it will not make you religious -- it will make you a Hindu, it will make you a Mohammedan, but NOT religious. Prayer has to be something absolutely informal, of the heart, not a ritual. Not something that you finish some-how in the morning because you HAVE to do it and you have been taught to do it -- it has become a duty. If you don't do it, you feel a little guilty; otherwise, doing it, you don't feel any joy out of it. When you don't do it, only guilt arises. To avoid that guilt, you go on doing it. This is not prayer.

Prayer is a way of living. What do I mean? A man of prayer remains in prayer twenty-four hours a day. He sleeps-in prayer; his sleep is a kind of prayer. He relaxes into sleep as if he is relaxing into the lap of God. When he is going to sleep, he sleeps in God. When he wakes up, he wakes up in God. He opens his eyes and the first thing that comes to his heart and to his being is gratefulness, utter gratefulness. He eats God, he drinks God. He walks in God. He breathes in God, he breathes God. His twenty-four hours are a continuum of prayer. It goes on running like background music. Whatsoever he is doing, that does not make any difference -- the prayer continues.

And I am not saying that you should start repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram," or "Allah, Allah, Allah." It is not a question of repetition. If you start repeating, "Ram and Ram and Ram," then it will be an interference in your life. Then you will not be able to drive rightly on the road, because your mind will be divided. Then you will not be able to do ANY work totally.

So I am not saying to repeat anything. It is not a question of verbal repetition. It is just a feeling, presence. Just as the mother sleeps in the night and her child is there by the side of her... and it may be the rainy season, with clouds and thunder in the sky, but she will not be awakened by the clouds and the thunder. But if the child just becomes a little uneasy, starts crying, she will be awakened immediately. Thunder was not enough to wake her, but her child.... Even in her sleep a part of her being re-members the child. That's how prayer is.

You live in the marketplace, you work, but DEEP down at the very core of your being, you go on bowing to God -- prayer continues, gratitude continues. Sometimes it surfaces when you have a silent moment; otherwise, it continues underground.

Prayed is a way of living, not having, but a way of asking. It is not compelling, not wanting to live from power and possession, but imploring to be allowed to be. Asking is the opposite of demanding. Asking is risky. It is entrusting yourself to the silence and the uncertainty of existence.

Prayer never demands. There is no possibility of any demanding in prayer because we cannot claim anything. But we can ask, just like a small child asks his mother. There is no demand in him; he is helpless, he is dependent. He simply asks. When he is hungry, he cries -- that's what prayer is. It is childlike helplessness.

We are so small and existence is so infinite... we are only for a few moments here, and existence has been always here and will be always here. We are just small waves in this infinite ocean. We can ask, but we cannot demand. We can ask because we are not strangers to existence, we are not outsiders. We belong to it. We are part of it. Existence has peopled us. It is existence's desire that we are. We can ask. But in asking, there is no demanding. If it is fulfilled we are thankful. If it is NOT fulfilled, we are thankful. Remember that. That is the beauty of prayer.

If it is fulfilled, we are thankful, obviously. If it is not fulfilled, still we are thankful. Why are we thankful even when it is not fulfilled? Because then the man who knows what prayer is, who lives prayer, also knows that sometimes we ask for a thing which is not good for us. Existence knows better. If it is needed it will be fulfilled. If it is not needed it will not be fulfilled.

I have heard:

"Do you expect God to answer your prayer?" he asked.

"You will see that God will answer," she predicted.

Two hours later when the brother returned he demanded of the little girl. "Well, has God answered?"

"Yes," she replies, pointing to the pieces. "He said, 'No."'
This is prayer. You can ask, but you cannot demand. If he says no, then it is perfectly okay. Finally, the decision is with him. Demanding means the decision has already been taken. Demanding means you want God to follow your will. Asking simply means, "I am putting my desire before you, but follow your will -- thy will be done, thy kingdom come." These last words of Jesus on the ass -- this is prayer!

A great poet, Huub Oosterhuis, says:

So Oosterhuis is right. And because he is a poet, he understands the significance of language. Only a poet understands the significance of language -- not a linguist, not a grammarian. The grammarian knows only the body of the language, the poet knows its heart, its soul, its spirit, its invisible dimension.

He is right: no one exists outside language and everything is a dialogue.

Yes, prayer is a dialogue. The part is talking to the whole. The part is addressing the whole. And you will have to learn this dialogue. Has not the desire sometimes arisen in you to talk to the trees? knowing perfectly well that they will not answer. Have you not sometimes said hello to a roseflower on the bush? You may not have said it because it looks so absurd, but has not the desire arisen in you? Have you not sometimes felt to talk to the starts? If you have not felt, then you have lost the capacity to feel. Have you not sometimes touched a rock with great love and passion? the texture of it! Have you not felt sometimes to SAY something to all the invisible that surrounds you? That is prayer, that is dialogue.

And one has to gather courage. Yes, one has to be so courageous -- only then can prayer happen. It is very easy to go into a church and pray, because people accept that. Nobody will call you mad. In fact, people will think you are greatly religious, a good man, a good Christian, Catholic of Hindu. people will respect you for it. But if you start talking to a tree.... Just see: you can talk to a cross int he church, which is dead wood -- you cannot talk to a tree which is alive. And if you cannot talk to a tree, how can you talk to the cross?
Start talking with existence, with nature. Be a little mad. Sometimes get out of your prison of so-called sanity. It is driving you insane, this so-called sanity. Thousands of people go insane every day. Thousands of people commit suicide around the earth every day. And millions go on living a dull and drab life, for no other reason -- just for one single reason: they have not prayed. They have not been able to talk to existence. They have not been able to pour their hearts out. Do you know why psychoanalysis has become so important in the modern world? Because people have forgotten how to pray.

The priest is being replaced by the psycholanalyst for one single reason: because people used to pour their hearts into nature; now they don't find any way to pour their hearts out. They go to the psychoanalyst, they pay fox it. The psychoanalyst listens -- they pour their hearts out. This is absolutely meaningless. You can do the same sitting in your garden. And the trees are better psychoanalysts because they listen so attentively, so intensely. Talk to the rocks! and you can say anything and they will not be offended. You can pour your heart out and your burdens will disappear and your tensions will disappear.

In the past man always lived such an unburdened, tension less life. The only reason was: everybody was capable of going into prayer. It was natural. People would go and talk to the mountains or to the rivers or to the sun or to the moon... these are all faces of God! manifestations of him. Alive, throbbing, pulsating, right now.

And when I say start talking with nature, I am giving you the first lesson of prayer. Churches are man-made. And whatsoever is man-made, avoid it -- because the man-made thing carries all kinds of neuroses that man has in him. Why not go to something that is God-made? If you want to feel God, go to something that is made by him, where you can find his signature.

Churches are man-made, so are temples, so are GURUDWARAS. There you will find only man and his politics. There you will find man and ALL his stupidities. Trees are less stupid, stars are not stupid. You go to them, you open your heart -- start a dialogue with nature. And the miracle happens one day, when suddenly you see that the tree has responded -- then you will know what prayer is, then you will understand Oosterhuis who says prayer is a dialogue. Yes, the tree ANSWERS one day, you just have to wait long enough. You Just have to convince the tree that you are REALLY talking to her, that's all. It takes a little time.

And man has been so destructive to the trees that they have become closed. Let the TREE FEEL that you are not a madman, that you are not violent, aggressive, that you have come with love, great love, that you want to feel God. And the creator can be felt only in his creation -- that is the beginning of the journey.

So prayer first has to be a dialogue -- a dialogue with whom? I say a dialogue with nature. So even an atheist can go into it. I don't bring God in yet. First move into dialogue with nature -- that is the ABE of prayer. And then, slowly slowly, start moving into silence with nature. Sit by the side of a rosebush and move into tremendous silence, no words between you and the rosebush, just silence pulsating... waves of silence.

Through dialogue you will know God as he is manifest in nature, and through silence you will know God as he is unmanifest. Through dialogue you will know God as creation, and through silence you will know God as creator.

So Buddha is also right; he is talking about the ultimate in prayer. But the ultimate is possible only if you do the immediate. The ultimate is only through the immediate.

The ancient Jews had a word; that word is MARANATHA -- it means "Come, Lord, come!" That is prayer. "I am ready. My heart is open for you! I am waiting. Come, Lord, come!"

A great awaiting, with all the doors open and all the windows open, for his breeze to blow through you. And his sun to come to your deepest core and fill you with light: "Come, Lord, come!"

Jews had another word; that is 'Hosanna' -- that means "Come and deliver us! Come and deliver us from our ignorance! Come and deliver us from our finitude. Come and deliver us from our limitations, from this imprisonment that we have created around ourselves Come, and give us freedom! Come and deliver -- come and liberate us!"

And the name of Christ, Jesus, means one who liberates. The original is 'Jehoshuah' or Jesus. It means one who has come to liberate 'Hosanna' and 'Jehoshuah' -- two words from the same Hebrew root, related to each other like question and answer, hope and fulfillment, prayer and the answer to the prayer.