The Perfect Master, Vol 1 Talks on Sufi Stories

Just think of the people, Gourishankar -- you are here only for a few days -- just think of the people who have been listening to me year in, year out. They have almost stopped listening, but a new kind of communication, a communion rather, has started. They are no more worried about my words. That is no more a concern. They have lost that enthusiasm for words. I have destroyed it.

I have contradicted myself so much that now they are aware of it -- there is no need to cling, tomorrow I will take it away. So what is the point? Wait for tomorrow. Slowly slowly, they have learnt the beauty of non-clinging. Slowly slowly, they have learnt how not to let my words interfere, and a direct communication, a communion... their energies start flowing with me. They can flow only when the word is no more important. Then something far superior takes place.

That's why I have been speaking so much. It is not to communicate with you through words: it is to destroy the meaning of the word itself. You will be surprised. The reason why I speak so much is that I want to destroy all meaning in the word. Listening to me, slowly slowly it disappears. And with the disappearance of the meaning of the word an existential connection arises. That is real initiation -- when you start hearing my music, when you become attuned to my presence, when you breathe with me. It happens... it has happened to somebody.

Vasumati has written this:

Soon that moment happens when the disciple is no more separate, the Master is no more separate. They have become one. That unity is the goal of all disciple hood. When that unity has happened, you have known the Master, you have drunk out of him, you have absorbed him. You have come home.

SOMETIMES WHEN YOU SPEAK, I GET THE VISION OF LIVING A KIND OF ZORBA THE GREEK LIFE -- EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY -- LUSTY AND PASSIONATE, AND I THINK THIS IS THE WAY. OTHER TIMES I FEEL YOU ARE SAYING THAT THE WAY IS TO SIT SILENTLY, WATCHFUL AND UNMOVING, LIKE A MONK. SO WHO ARE WE TO BE -- ZORBAS OR MONKS -- AND HOW CAN A BLEND OF THEM BE POSSIBLE? I SENSE THAT YOU HAVE MANAGED TO INTEGRATE THE CONTRADICTIONS, BUT CAN WE BE BOTH ZORBAS, MOVED BY PASSION AND DESIRE, AND BUDDHAS, DISPASSIONATE, COOL AND CALM?

Zorba is beautiful, but something is missing. The earth is his, but the heaven is missing. He is earthly, rooted, like a giant cedar, but he has no wings. He cannot fly into the sky. He has roots but no wings.

Eat, drink and be merry is perfectly good in itself: nothing is wrong in it. But it is not enough. Soon you will get tired of it. One cannot just go on eating, drinking and marrying. Soon the merry-go-round turns into a sorry-go-round -- because it is repetitive. Only a very mediocre mind can go on being happy with it. If you have a little intelligence, sooner or later you will find the utter futility of it all. How long can you go on eating, drinking and marrying? Sooner or later the question is bound to arise -- what is the point of it all? Why? It is impossible to avoid the question for long. And if you are very intelligent, it IS ALWAYS there, persistently there, hammering on your heart for the answer: Give me the answer! -- why?

And one thing to be remembered: it is not that the people who are poor, starving, become frustrated with life -- no. They cannot become frustrated. They have not lived yet -- how can they be frustrated? They have hopes. A poor man always has hopes. A poor man always desires that something is going to happen, hopes that something is going to happen. If not today then tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. If not in this life then in the next life.

What do you think? Who are these people who have depicted heaven as a Playboy Club -- who are these people? Starved, poor, who have missed their life. They are projecting their desires in heaven. In heaven there are rivers of wine. Who are these people who are imagining rivers of wine? They must have missed here. And there are KALPAVRAKSHAS -- wish-fulfilling trees. You sit underneath them, desire, and the moment you desire, immediately it is fulfilled. Not even a single moment passes by between the desire and its fulfillment, no shadow between the desire and the fulfillment. It is immediate, instant!

Who are these people? Starved, have not been able to live their life. How can they be frustrated with lithe? They have not experienced -- it is only through experience that one comes to know the utter futility of it all. Only Zorbas come to know the utter futility of it all.

Buddha himself was a Zorba. He had all the beautiful women available I his country. His father had arranged for all the beautiful girls to be around him. He had the most beautiful palaces -- different places for different seasons. He had ALL the luxury that is possible, or that was possible in those days. He lived the life of a Zorba the Greek -- hence, when he was only twenty-nine he became utterly frustrated. He was a very intelligent man. If he had been a mediocre man, then he would have lived in it. But soon he saw the point: it is repetitive, it is the same. Every day you eat, every day you make love to a woman... and he had new women every day to make love to. But how long...?! Soon he was fed up.

The experience of life is very bitter. It is sweet only in imagination In its reality it is very bitter. He escaped from the palace and the woman and the riches and the luxury and everything....

So, I am not against Zorba the Greek because Zorba the Greek is the very foundation of Zorba the Buddha. Buddha arises out of that experience. So I am all for this world, because I know the other world can only be experienced through this world. So I don't say escape from it, Prabhu Maya; I will not say to you become a monk. A monk is one who has moved against the Zorba; he is an escapist, a coward; he has done something in a hurry, out of unintelligence. He is not a mature person. A monk is immature, greedy -- greedy for the other world, and wants it too early, and the season has not come, and he is not ripe yet.

Live in this world because this world gives a ripening, maturity, integrity. The challenges of this world give you a centering, an awareness. And that awareness becomes the ladder. Then you can move from Zorba to Buddha.

But let me repeat again: only Zorbas become Buddhas -- and Buddha was never a monk. A monk is one who has never been a Zorba and has become enchanted by the words of Buddhas. A monk is an imitator, he is false, pseudo. He imitates Buddhas. He may be Christian, he may be Buddhist, he may be a Jain -- that doesn't make much difference -- but he imitates Buddhas.

When a monk goes away from the world, he goes fighting with it. It is not a relaxed going. His whole being is pulled towards the world. He struggles against it. He becomes divided. Half of his being is for the world and half has become greedy for the other. He is torn apart. A monk is a schizophrenic basically, the split person, divided into the lower and the higher. And the lower goes on pulling him, and the lower becomes more and more attractive the more it is repressed. And because he has not lived the lower, he cannot get into the higher.

You can get into the higher only when you have lived through the lower. You can earn the higher only by going through all the agony and the ecstasy of the lower. Before a lotus becomes a lotus it has to move through the mud -- that mud is the world. The monk has escaped from the mud, he will never become a lotus. It is as if a lotus seed is afraid of falling into mud -- maybe out of ego that "I am a lotus seed! And I cannot fall into the mud. " But then it is going to remain a seed; it will never bloom as a lotus. If it wants to bloom like a lotus, it has to fall into the mud, it has to live this contradiction. Without this contradiction of living in the mud there is no going beyond.
You ask me, Maya: SOMETIMES WHEN YOU SPEAK, I GET THE VISION OF LIVING A KIND OF ZORBA THE GREEK LIFE -- EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY -- LUSTY AND PASSIONATE, AND I THINK THIS IS THE WAY. OTHER TIMES I FEEL YOU ARE SAYING THAT THE WAY IS TO SIT SILENTLY; WATCHFUL AND UNMOVING LIKE A MONK.
No. I will be the last person to make a monk out of you -- otherwise, why are the monks and nuns so much against me? I would like you to become rooted into the earth. I am perfectly in agreement with Friedrich Nietzsche who says: "I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe in those who speak of other- worldly hopes! " Learn your first lesson of trust by trusting the earth. It is your home right now!

Don't hanker for the other world. Live this world, and live it with intensity, with passion. Live it with totality, with your whole being. And out of that whole trust, out of that life of passion, love and joy, you will become able to go beyond.

The other world is hidden in this world. The Buddha is asleep in the Zorba. It has to be awakened. And nobody can awaken you except life itself.

I am here to help you to be total WHEREVER you are, in whatsoever state you are -- live that state totally. It is only living a thing totally that one transcends it.

First become a Zorba, a flower of this earth, and earn the capacity through it to become a Buddha -- the flower of the other world. The other world is not away from this world; the other world is not against this world: the other world is hidden in this. THIS is only a manifestation of the other, and the other is the unmanifest part of it.
The third question:
BELOVED OSHO,

Question 3

NO OASIS, NO DESERTS,

NO MOUNTAINS, NO VALLEYS,

NO SUMMER, NO WINTER,

NO RAIN, NO SNOW,

NO YES AND NO!

NO SUFI, NO ZEN,

NO TANTRA, NO MANTRA,

NO CROWN, NO CROSS,

NO GAIN, NO LOSS!

ALL IN YOU.

INFINITELY, ETERNALLY

YES AND NO! FOR EVER WITH

YOU!
SEETA, THIS IS THE WAY TO UNDERSTAND ME. I am neither Sufi nor Zen. I am neither male nor female. I am neither positive nor negative. And I am here to help you to transcend ALL polarities. Hence I speak on the polarities, so that you can understand them, so that you can become aware of them -- so much so that you are not trapped by them.

I talk to you about Sufism and about Zen so that one day you can go beyond both. You have to go beyond all standpoints! You have to go beyond all kinds of principles, dogmas, paths, methods, techniques. To be with me is on the way towards transcendence. I am neither a theist nor an atheist, neither a Hindu nor a Mohammedan.

I am simply an awareness -- full of love. You can also become that, because whatsoever I have become you can become, because wherever you are I was also there one day, with the same agony, the same suffering, with the same dichotomies -- with the same problems! I was just like you. That's why I say you can also be just like me.

To be with a Master is to be with a man who has been JUST like you, because only that man can help you who has been just like you. If a Master descends from God, he cannot be of much help -- because he has never been a man. If God himself comes on the earth and moves amongst you, he will be of no help at all. That's why he has never tried. Or maybe he has tried and failed, so he has dropped the whole project.

God cannot commune with you. He has never been a man. He will not know where you are. He will not know how you are suffering. He will not have any compassion for you. He will have no understanding. And he has always been there where you would like to be. The distance will be vast. Even if God confronts you, there will be such a gap between you and God that it will be unbridgeable. Hence the meaning of a Master.

A Master is one who has bell just like you, w ho has arisen out of you, who has moved out of you and gone ahead. He knows all the pains of the journey. He knows the whole past of man. He understands -- that's why he has compassion. And he can help, because he is still in the body. His one hand is still in the world, his other hand has roached God. He can become a bridge. A Master is a bridge.

Sect a, this is the way to understand me. Don't let it remain just in the mind. Let it become vibrant in each cell and fibre of your body. Let it become your heartbeat and your breathing.
The fourth question:
Question 4

WHY DO THE MYSTICS SPEAK A LANGUAGE OF THEIR OWN?

That's why mystics use language in a certain way, and different mystics decide in different ways. Sufis have decided for parables; their message is all in their stories. Stories have a beauty. Even children can undue}stand them. They can go to the lowest, who cannot understand anything higher, and even he can understand the story. He will understand according to his capacity, but if you go on meditating over the story... and one has to meditate over these stories. These are not stories that you read once and throw them away. They have great meanings hidden in them. You have to dig again and again. You have to meditate. Slowly slowly, new meanings arrive. As you grow in sympathy, in trust, in consciousness, in meditation, the meaning grows.

Sufis speak in parables. They have chosen that way because there are so many people in the world and at different stages of life, at different stations. Something has to be told which can be understood by all. Now, the parable has a beauty: it can be understood by all in different ways. It is very unlimited. Those who can't understand, even they can enjoy it. If today they enjoy it, tomorrow they may understand it.

Mahavir has chosen a different method. He does not speak at all. Language has been dropped. Silence is his language. He simply sits with his disciples. Now this will be difficult; not all will be able to understand it -- only the highest. It is said about Mahavir: his first sermon, of course in silence, was understood only by gods. That's a way of saying that nobody understood it. It took years for men, a few men, to understand him.

Jainism is the smallest religion as far as the number of the followers is concerned. Why? The reason is here: Mahavir didn't choose a method that can be understood by many people in many ways. He was a very very mathematical person -- that is the reason behind it. He would like to be exact. He cannot use a parable. A parable is basically inexact. A parable has to be vague. So many meanings can be in it; no meaning in particular, and many mean-ings in it. It has to be a magic bag: you can bring out of it any meaning that you want. It will be understood by many people. Millions will be able to understand, even children will be able to read it. And something will happen to them.

Mahavir was very mathematical. Because he was very mathematical he would remain silent -- because he knew that if he said something it would not be as exact as it is in him, so it was better not to speak. Silence is his language. Only a few very evolved souls could understand him.

Zen has a different method of its own. It does not use parables. It does not remain silent either. It uses khans, puzzles, riddles, which cannot be solved by the human mind. That is its way to destroy the human mind. It takes years.

Never be befooled when you read in books about Zen that the Master hits a disciple and he becomes enlightened immediately -- you don't know the whole story. He was meditating for twenty-six years. That part is not told in it. After twenty-six years he has earned the blow of the Master; it is not for everybody. Don't think that when you go to a Zen Master he will hit you on your head and you will become enlightened. He will not hit you at all. He will be very polite with you. He will say, "Sir, so great of you to have come to me! I rejoice in your presence." Don't think that he will hit you. It has to be earned. It takes YEARS to get that blow of the Master. That blow can be given only at the last moment.

When between you and reality there is only a very very thin layer left, so just one blow and the layer is broken and the bird is out of the egg.... But the bird has to be given a chance to mature in the egg first. Don't go breaking eggs before they are ripe, otherwise you will kill the bird. You will not be of any help.

Zen has its own methodology, very crazy, but of immense power.

Buddha cannot speak the same way as Jesus. His terminology is bound to be different. He has never been to the forest, he has never chopped wood, he has never cut wood, he has never carried logs to the father's workshop. He does not know how the freshly cut wood smells. He cannot speak that language. He cannot use the parable of the shepherd and the sheep, the lost sheep. No, he has no understanding of the shepherd and the sheep. Jesus can use that parable.

Buddha speaks like a king -- the language of the court, the language of philosophy, not the language of the common person. He has not been a common person -- how can he speak that language?

So EACH mystic has to use his own language. And remember: speaking is precarious. People talk around the subject, interrupt, change the subject, do not understand, are silent. Words heal and wound, build up and sow confusion. To use the word is to use a very very dangerous weapon. It can be used for surgery; it can also be used to cut somebody's throat. And one has to be very skillful. Many mystics have decided not to speak at all. And those who have spoken, they have also spoken continuously against speaking. And even if they were very very intelligent, very experienced with language, very articulate, then too....

The statements of the Buddha seem hard and impossible to us who are full of ideas and understanding nothing. "That art thou" -- a statement like a sea. You cannot walk on it, you cannot build on it. It runs like water through your fingers. "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him" -- a statement like a mountain. You cannot see through it, you don't know what lies behind it. You have no idea what it means, what it is all about.

Just a few days before, I received a letter from America. Some-body must have read in one of my books somewhere: "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him." Now he was very angry. Must be a very poor Buddhist. He was so angry and annoyed that he wrote to me in great rage: "Who are you to tell us to kill the Buddha? How can you say such a sacrilegious thing? To kill the Buddha? Buddha has to be worshipped, not killed. Buddha is the greatest man who has walked on the earth. What do you mean by saying 'Kill the Buddha if you meet him on the way'?"

He was really angry. I can understand his anger. He does not understand Buddha, he does not understand these great statements. And it is not my statement either. Zen people have been saying it down the ages; it is more than two thousand years old at least. But he may not be aware of it. He must be thinking that I am somebody who is against Buddha. But Buddha is dead! If I am against him, how can I say kill him?

These statements ARE like mountains, great mountains. They are like Everest, very difficult to climb too -- every possibility of never reaching to the understanding of them.

He could not understand, this American could not understand, because he must have been brought up in a Christian way, and then he may have become interested in Buddha. That is the prob-lem. No Christian can say that: "If you meet Jesus on the way, kill him." That is not their language. They will think this is sacrilegious -- that's what he writes in the letter: "This is sacrilegious! You must be an atheist, an irreligious person. You must be a Satan to say such a thing as 'Kill the Buddha."' His upbringing must be Christian; that is ANOTHER kind of language. He does not know the Zen way of saying things.

It is not said against Buddha -- it contains Buddha's whole message! Buddha will absolutely agree with it. That's what he did when he was leaving the world. His last statement was exactly this. He said to his disciple, Ananda, who was weeping and crying, "Don't weep and cry for me! In fact I have been the barrier to you. Now the barrier is dying, you are free, and it may become more easy for you to be enlightened. Be a light unto yourself."

And Ananda had lived with Buddha for forty years, and lived unenlightened. And after Buddha was gone, within twenty-four hours, he became enlightened. What happened? He was clinging to the idea of Buddha. That very clinging was a barrier.

It happened in Ramakrishna's case too:

He looked at Ramakrishna and he said, "Yes, I will help you. But the only thing is: you will have to destroy this Mother goddess."

Ramakrishna started shaking and trembling and perspiring. He said, "What are you saying? How can I destroy the Mother goddess? She is my Mother! She has helped me up to now. She is my all in all. She is my soul, my very heart. I will die!"

Totapuri said, "So better die, but kill this Mother. If you really want to have freedom, you have to destroy all connections and all attachments. And this is your attachment. You are not attached to your wife, so that is not a problem. You are not attached to money, so that is not the problem. You are not attached to the world, so that is not the problem. Your whole attachment is with this Mother, this idea of a Mother goddess. And I know, it is beautiful, but still it will keep you away from the truth."

Ramakrishna would sit in meditation in front of Totapuri, but the moment he would close his eyes, the Mother goddess was there with all her glory. And he would start swaying, and tears would come in his eyes. And he would forget all about Totapuri end his freedom. And Totapuri would shake him up and he would say, "You have again fallen into the dream. It is ALL dream! Why don't you take a sword and cut her in two pieces? Destroy her!"