The master is at the door

Question 1:

They only can exist together. The friendship with a master is no ordinary friendship. It has a reverence in it, love in it, devotion in it, tremendous gratitude in it. It is a multidimensional phenomenon.

The ordinary friendship is a worldly thing, mundane. The spiritual friendship is not of this world, it belongs to the beyond. I have to use the same words which are used for the mundane because there are no other words, so you have to be alert and aware that whatever I say, you cannot find its meaning in a dictionary. It has much more in it. It is immensely rich.

The word is small and very soft and the experience is vast and very infinite. And I can see in you it is not just an intellectual question, your heart is feeling immense pain because you are thinking that friendship means you have to bypass devotion, respect, reverence, and your heart is saying no.

Listen to the heart, not to the dictionary.

The heart never lies; the mind never tells the truth. The mind is a great speaker; the heart is very silent but it also expresses itself in tears.

Your question is immensely significant because it is coming from the heart. The heart is feeling the pain because the mind has taken the word 'friendship' in an ordinary sense, ignoring the heart. The heart is full of tears. Those tears are valuable.

The understanding of the mind has no significance. In the world of spirituality it is only the heart that has to be listened to and followed. Your heart is giving you the answer. I am simply repeating it so that it becomes clear to you.

The friendship with the master includes everything that is beautiful in all other relationships, and it excludes everything that is ugly in all our human relationships. It is the pure essence, the very fragrance of all our human relationships. It includes everything, but only the best part of it, the very cream of it.

So don't be worried, rejoice that it is happening to you and that your heart is strong enough not to let the mind decide. Your heart is strong enough to be the master and let the mind be simply a servant.

Question 2:

The question is from somebody very intellectual - perhaps a professor. It is a mind question.

When the master is at the door it is too late! You cannot do anything. You cannot close the door in the face of the master, you cannot invite the master inside for the simple reason the ancient scriptures of the East say the master is death - and they mean it.

To allow the master in means you will have to die as an ego, as a personality, and that's all you know about yourself. Hence the fear, hence the question, what to do now? He is just at the door. One step more and you are finished. But there is no need to be worried.

You will die as an ego but you will be reborn as the self, which is your reality. You will die as a personality but you will be born as an individuality, which is existential. Personality is just artificial.

The master can take away only those things which do not belong to you. He cannot take anything away from you which is your authentic nature. The master cannot give you anything, he simply removes all the hindrances so that you can discover yourself.

I am reminded of one historical incident....

The world's best sculptor, Michelangelo, was passing through the street where there were many shops of marble and different kinds of stone sellers. He used to go there often to find good pieces of marble. In front of the first shop, on the other side of the road, there was a huge piece of marble, very ugly looking, and it had been lying there for almost five years. He had never paid any attention to it. He went around the marble, looked at it, touched it, and was immensely happy. He came back to the owner of the shop and asked, "What will you take for that stone?"

The shop owner said, "Nothing, you can take it, because I have kept it for five years - and nobody wants it. And I am paying unnecessary rent for it. I cannot keep it in the shop, it is too big. So I am keeping it on the other side of the road on somebody else's land, and he is charging me rent for it. You are the first man in five years who has even inquired about it. Thousands of sculptors have been coming to the shop, but none has even paid attention to the stone. You can take it joyfully, with my thanks. You need not pay for it because I am getting fed up with it."

Michelangelo arranged for the stone to be carried to his home, and he said to the shopkeeper, "When I have worked it out I would love and appreciate very much if you can come to see what has become of the stone, because I have already seen it. It is only a question of chipping the stone here and there. Somebody is encaged in the stone who has called me, I have not to do much, I have not to create anything - just to remove the unnecessary parts."

And he created the most beautiful statue perhaps in the whole world - a statue of Mary, Jesus' mother, when she takes Jesus down from the cross. Mary is sitting, and Jesus is lying in her lap dead... full-size; the stone was so big. He worked for one year on it, and when it was completed he asked the owner to come and see. The owner could not believe that that ugly stone could be transformed into such a beautiful statue as he had ever seen.

But Michelangelo said, "It was Mary and Jesus who called me. I was coming into your shop and they called me, saying, 'We are encaged in this stone - just give us freedom.'"

That's how every artist works. Before he starts making a statue he has already seen it in his vision.

Then he has just to remove the unnecessary parts. The master is the greatest artist in the world.

He does not work with stones or marble, he works with living human beings. When he accepts somebody to be a friend, it means he has seen the vision, the possibility, the potentiality - what you can become.

You have chosen the master; you have invited him. Now he is at the door, and you are freaking out.

Your mind must be worried.

The master is certainly dangerous. If he is not dangerous he is not a master at all. He is going to destroy much in you - only then the real can be discovered. And you are asking me, what can be done when the master is at the door.

You can do only one thing, being a professor, intellectual...

I remember a story in Mulla Nasruddin's life....

He used to visit the cafe every evening, and he always talked and bragged about everything. That day he was bragging about his generosity, hospitality, and a friend said, "Mulla, you can talk about other things, but at least don't talk about these things because we have been your friends for years.

You have never asked us even for a cup of tea. Every day we have to pay for your coffee and anything that you eat in the cafe. You have some nerve."

He said, "You never remind me. Make me remember it. I am a man of great spirituality and I don't think about small, mundane things - a cup of coffee or money, these things don't matter. You should have reminded me. Today you have reminded me. You all are invited to my house. Come for dinner.

The whole cafe... friends, acquaintances, strangers.... It doesn't matter, everybody has to come; then you will know how generous I am."

They could not believe it, but he was inviting, so they followed him, a great crowd. And as the house came nearer, Mulla started walking slower. They said, "What is the matter, Mulla?"

Mulla said, "You all know. You are all married. I am also married, so there is nothing to be kept secret. I forgot all about my wife. Talking about great things I forgot about my wife. In fact, in the morning she had sent me to purchase vegetables and it is night now and I have wasted the whole day talking about spirituality and great things. And finally I ended up with you, and now I am coming with a crowd for dinner and there is nothing in the house. You can understand my situation. She will kill me."

They said, "This is strange. You should have remembered. How should we know it? But now we are not going back."

Mulla said, "I am not telling you to go back. You just remain standing at the door. Let me go in and persuade my wife; it will take a few minutes. I am sorry, but you will have to wait, because if I enter with this whole crowd, she will go mad."

They understood; they had the same problems. They said, "Okay, we will wait for a few minutes.

You go and persuade your wife."

Mulla went in and told her, "A gang of stupid people is following me. Now only you can save me."

The wife said, "What is the matter?"

He said, "Nothing is the matter. You simply go there and ask them, 'Why are you standing here?'

And they will certainly say, 'We are waiting here for Mulla Nasruddin.' And you can say, 'He has not been seen since the morning. He had gone to purchase vegetables and I have been waiting the whole day.'"

The woman said, "Strange... why so many people should come and..."

Mulla said, "But you have to save me. It is a question of prestige."

The wife went out, opened the door, and said to the people, "What are you doing here?"

They said, "We are not doing anything. We are simply staying here because Mulla told us to stay here."

The wife said, "He has not been seen since the morning."

They said, "This is something. He came with us, we all are eyewitnesses - in front of us he entered into the room."

The wife said, "You must be mistaken, he is not in the house."

They said, "Then we would like to look in the house because he has invited us for dinner."

The wife said, "Dinner?"

At that point - Mulla was listening to the whole conversation from the second story; he had opened the window a little bit and was watching what was happening. When they said that they were going to search the house he thought, "This is going to be difficult."

He shouted from the window, "You are simply idiots. He may have come with you but you don't understand logic, he may have gone from the back door. Are you not ashamed arguing with a poor woman? Feel ashamed and go back home!"

Now he forgot that you cannot deny yourself - that is impossible. You cannot say, I may have gone from the back door. Then who is talking? But in the fury, in the anger, and they were trying to force themselves into the house, and the poor wife would not be able to prevent them and he was bound to be caught...!

You are in the same situation. You can tell the master that you are not at home. That's what millions of people are saying, that they are not at home. So it is not just a joke, it is a reality for millions of people. All the people who deny the existence of the soul are saying, "I am not at home." Then who is denying?

Half the world is communist today. They don't believe in the soul; they argue about it. I have been arguing with many communists, and I was surprised that they are not aware of a simple thing: who is arguing?

You are conscious, and you are denying consciousness. You are alive, and you are denying the very principle of life. You are in a really difficult situation, you cannot escape now. That's why I said it is too late. It is better to invite the master in, because he won't care about your invitation, he is going to enter in.

He is your master. You have accepted him as your master, and unconsciously you may have invited him many times to come to you, and now he has come. Now there is no way to escape. It is better to accept the fact that he is going to kill you as you have known you up to now, and he is going to give you a new birth.

Socrates used to say that the basic function of the master is just to give birth, but every birth has to be preceded by death. Once you understand it, once you have passed through such an experience of death and birth, then you will live each moment of your life dying to the past and being reborn anew in the present. Then each moment is a death and a rebirth, and that is the only real life. Then you don't carry dead weight of so many years, of so many lives - an unnecessary burden which does not allow you to live lightly, lovingly, dancingly.

If the master has come to the gate you are fortunate - let him come in just for once, because next time he will not come. Next time you will be doing the same yourself. You will know the key.

That death, every death, opens doors for new and fresh life. If you want to be alive intensely, you have to allow death to happen every moment and then you will know a totally new taste of vitality, of youth, of energy, of freshness. And with your freshness, the whole existence becomes fresh. With your youth, the whole existence becomes young.

I have heard about one chief justice of the Supreme Court of America. When he retired he told his wife... and they had remained together for almost sixty years. They had had their honeymoon in Paris. He said, "Before I die I have a great desire to go back to Paris to the same hotel, to the same room, to visit the same places that we visited when we had our honeymoon."

The wife was also excited. They both went to Paris - the hotel was the same, the room was the same, the places they went to see were the same. But the old man said, "Something seems to be very dull, old. It is no longer the same Paris. I don't see the same joy and the same dance and the same beauty."

His wife was more pragmatic - wives are always more pragmatic, more earthbound. She took the hand of the old man and told him, "You are wrong. Paris is exactly the same, perhaps more beautiful.

In sixty years it has become bigger, more beautiful, better. But you have forgotten one thing: this is not our honeymoon, and we have become sixty years older. It is our old eyes which are so full of dust and death that we cannot see the youth and the freshness and the beauty. Don't say Paris is no longer Paris, simply say that we are no longer the same."

She was saying a great truth: the world is what you are. If you are frustrated, sad, miserable, you will see the same things all around. And if you are joyous, your heart is full of song, you will see the whole world with songs and dances and flowers and fragrance. It all depends on you.

So don't be worried. It is a blessing that the master is at the door. It happens only to the fortunate ones.

Question 3:

It is not only the experience of Veena who has died in becoming a sannyasin, and is born as Videh.

This is the experience of millions of sannyasins around the world....

Initiation is death and life.

Initiation is a discontinuity with the past.

You had lived a life, you had experienced many things, but all your experiences and your whole life were not a fulfillment. It was not a contentment, it was not ecstatic; it was more misery, more suffering, more pain. It was more dragging than living. That is the reason one starts looking for a new way of life, a new mode of existence.

Sannyas is a revolution.

It simply means that you are finished with the past, and you don't want to repeat it. You have repeated it enough, and the repetition has made you almost a robot. It does not give joy. Every morning it is the same, every evening it is the same - tomorrow will be simply another carbon copy of today.

How can you feel like rejoicing? Every day is bringing you nearer to the end. Death will come and erase you just the way people go and write their names on the beach, their signatures, and a wave comes and erases it all.

Death comes and erases you completely as if you had never been here. Do you know how many people have been here? Each person is sitting on the corpses of at least ten persons. Every inch of the earth has been a graveyard.

I am reminded of a very famous Sufi story....

One king was unable to sleep in the night. He was tossing and turning when he heard somebody on the roof of the palace, walking. He shouted, "Who is there?"

The man said, "It is none of your business. I am searching for my camel."

The king said, "You seem to be an utter idiot. Camels don't get lost on people's roofs."

But the man said, "It is true I am an idiot, but no more than you, because what you are searching for in this palace your father was also searching for, your grandfather was also searching for. For generations you have been searching in this palace and you have not found anything. You are wasting your time, and your death is not far away. It is possible that a camel may get lost on a roof, but it is impossible to find contentment, blissfulness the way you are searching for them and in the place where you are searching for them."

And his voice was so authoritative. The king had never in his life come across another man... he had only dealt with servants, soldiers, his own people, and they were always saying "Yes, sir." And this man shouted from the roof.

The king called his guards. A great search was made but the man could not be caught.

The next morning the king was sitting in the court thinking about the man. Slowly, slowly he had calmed down and was thinking that perhaps he was right. "It was not the right way to tell me such a thing - in the middle of the night on my own roof - but what he said seemed to be significant. And the man cannot be mad!"

At that very moment another man at the door started arguing with the guard, "I want to stay in this caravanserai for a few days."

The guard said, "You must be mad. This is the king's own palace, his own home. There is a caravanserai, you can go half a mile more and you will find it."

He said, "I want to stay in this caravanserai!"

The guard said, "But you seem to be absolutely stupid. You don't understand a simple thing, that this is a palace."

The king was listening from inside; the voice was the same. He told the guards, "Bring that man in.

I have been looking for him."

He looked at the man; he said, "Are you not the same man who was looking for the camel on my roof?"

He said, "So you have come down to your senses. Yes, I am the man. And I had to do this just to make you aware that neither can camels be found on the roofs of houses nor can bliss be found in a caravanserai which you are mistakenly believing is your own house.

"I came here before and there was another man - you were not here - and he was claiming the same thing, that it was his house. I came before that, and there was another man, and he was also claiming that this was his house. Now you are claiming it. I can say with guarantee, that the fourth time I come I will find somebody else claiming the same."

The king said, "You are right. One was my father, the other was my grandfather, the other was my great-grandfather. And it is possible that next time you come perhaps you may find my son in my place - I am getting old. But to what conclusion are you trying to lead me?"

The man laughed. He said, "You have understood the conclusion - that it is a caravanserai, and many people have lived here and gone. It is nobody's home. In this whole earth there is no home, only caravanserais. Why not accept a fact?"

The impact of the man, his personality, was so much that the king immediately left the home and he said, "He is right. His methods are a little mad, but I have heard about many Sufis who use methods which look mad but their madness is only a device. I have understood. I am leaving this caravanserai in search of my home."

This man became a very famous Sufi himself. He went outside the capital, made a small hut there at the crossroads, and lived there. And every day there was trouble, because anybody who would come to the crossroads would ask, "Which road leads to the city?"

And he would say, "Go right and you will reach the eternal city." For a moment they would think, "eternal city...?"

But one forgives mystics! These people talk strange things....

"But this is the road...?" They would say, "You are certain?"

He would say, "I am absolutely certain. You can go and find it yourself" - and that was the road leading to the graveyard.

And those people would come back furious, and would tell him, "You seem to be really mad. There is no city, there is a graveyard."

But the king would say, "I told you beforehand it is the eternal city. Once a person starts residing there, he resides forever. It is the real city, you should have asked about the unreal city. The road on the left goes to the unreal city - where people live for a few days thinking that this is the city and finally have to leave and go to the eternal city. And I am always in trouble. People ask for the real city and I show them the real city, then they come with anger. You can go to the unreal city this way, but remember, that is an unreal city. Don't take it for granted that it is real. I also used to live there. I want to find the real home before death finds me."

One becomes a sannyasin to find the real home, to find something of eternity, to find something which death cannot destroy. Certainly, it cannot be the body - it is a caravanserai. It cannot be the mind - it changes constantly.

Initiation into sannyas is the beginning of the search for something beyond mind. And one who takes initiation with a deep love, a great adventure, understanding that whatever way he has lived was not right, that it was the dark night of the soul, and he is entering into the world of light... A simple initiation which for the outsiders will mean nothing, but for the person himself it is a mutation - his whole being is changed. His past drops from him and the future opens its doors. Now he starts living for the first time as a conscious human being. And this consciousness goes on growing.

So what has happened to the questioner is a reality which has happened to many, many people.

And this is the reason we change the name in sannyas - just to give you an indication that now you are no longer the old self. Just a hint to let the old be dead and begin anew, fresh from the very scratch - a new life, a new being, a new love, a new consciousness. Enter into a new universal truth.

I am happy, Videh, that Veena is dead. Rejoice in the death of Veena, and rejoice in the birth of Videh.

Question 4:

First, there is no need to go back and live a sad and miserable life. That suits the stupid and the idiots, not anyone who has a little bit of intelligence. Life is to rejoice, life is to dance.

Life is to drink the juice of it as totally as possible.

I am reminded of an incident in paradise, in a restaurant....

Lao Tzu, Confucius and Gautam Buddha - all three were sitting around a table discussing great things. Just at that moment a naked woman, immensely beautiful, came with a jar to the side of the table and asked them, "Would you like to taste some juice of life?"

Gautam Buddha simply closed his eyes - he did not reply.

Confucius half closed his eyes - he believes in the golden mean. And he said to the girl, "I would just like to taste, not to drink. I would just like to know how it tastes." So he had taken just a sip and he said, "It is bitter. You take it away."

Lao Tzu took the whole jar from the girl's hands and drank it completely in one gulp. Even the girl was surprised. Emptying the jar, he said, "Great. It was delicious. But to know anything really, one has to go totally into it. It was bitter to you, Confucius, because you are unaware of the new taste of life. You don't have a trained tongue, trained buds; you have never lived life. You have always been an outsider on the boundaries with your half-closed eyes. Whatever you see is incomplete. Truth can never be seen incomplete - either you see it or you don't see it. Truth is indivisible.

"I had to drink the whole of the juice. Please forgive me. Without drinking the whole, it is impossible to give any judgment. You both are incapable of giving any judgment. Gautam Buddha is absolutely out because he knows no taste and he has closed eyes, he has not even seen how it looks. He has not seen the beautiful woman who has brought it. He is making himself blind and dumb; he is closing himself against life. So whatever he says about life is irrelevant.

"And I will not trust any word from you either. Half-closed eyes can only give you a half truth. In just taking a sip, it may not even have reached into your stomach, you may not have digested it. It has not become blood and bone in you, and unless truth becomes your very being, your very heart, you have no right to say anything about it.

"I am the only one with fully open eyes who has drunk it totally."

I love the story. It certainly is a story, because in paradise there are no restaurants - in hell there are.

In paradise what will you do with restaurants? Saints don't like restaurants. The restaurants would not find any customers. They would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. So it is simply an example, a parable, but very significant.

So the first thing is: you are not to go back to sadness and misery, and even though I am saying you are not to go back, I don't mean that you can - there is no way; you cannot. There is nothing to go back to. You were sad and miserable, now you are contented and happy. Why in the world should you choose to go back?

As far as meditation or prayer is concerned, remember, you cannot force them. There are things in life which you cannot do violently, which you have only to wait for silently, inviting, welcoming, with open doors, awake and alert so that when the guest comes you can welcome the guest.

And it is already happening to you. You say you have not meditated, still you are finding deep contentment and happiness. If there is contentment it means that without your knowing, some qualities of meditation have entered into you. Without knocking on your door, happiness has made a way into you.

The connection between contentment, happiness, misery and sadness is almost like light and darkness. If you suddenly find that darkness has disappeared from your being, whether you know it or not, light has entered. Without the entry of light, the darkness cannot go.

So my suggestion is that first be grateful that even though you have not meditated... you have just been listening to me. But in just listening to me something in you has become silent, for a few moments there has been a gap in your thinking. There have been times when you were there but there was no ego. Just sitting here, waiting for what I am going to say - in that gap, contentment has entered.

In America, hundreds of television reporters used to come, and their only complaint with me was:

"What can be said in ten minutes you take twenty minutes. We have a limited time and we don't want to cut anything because whatever you are saying is so interconnected that if we cut anything it will be out of context. Why can't you speak like everybody else? Why do you suddenly become silent? You speak a word and then you leave a gap."

I said, "This is the way I am going to speak, because it is a question not only of speaking, it is a question of giving moments of meditation to the people who are listening to me.

"While I am speaking they are engaged, their minds are filled with me. When suddenly I stop for a moment, their minds also stop, waiting.... And those are the most beautiful moments, when they have a taste of meditation without knowing that they are meditating."

That's what has happened to you. You have been in touch with meditation up to now without awareness. From now on you have to be fully aware. Contentment and happiness indicate - they are symptoms that a change has started happening inside you. No need to force, just go on as you are, enjoying your contentment more, allowing the same situation in which it happens, relishing every bit of happiness that comes to you and watching when it comes, what is the situation in which it comes. So move in that situation more and more. No need to force meditation, no need to force anything. Simply create the right atmosphere in which those things start happening on their own.

And they are already happening. So you have just to see the knack of how they are happening and go on very easily, at ease, without any tension, without any effort, without any enforcement.

Because the danger is if you become greedy and if you want them to happen more and you try to force them, you may destroy even that which is happening. So no effort, no will has to be involved in it.

You have to be simply waiting.

And waiting is prayer.

Waiting for the unknown to enter in you.

Waiting to be pregnant with the divine.

You cannot do anything about it, but you can wait.

And the last thing: you said you trust only me. If just by trusting me so much is happening to you, just think if you trust everybody how much more will be happening to you. Trusting a single human being has changed your life from sadness to contentment. If you can trust everybody without conditions, you will see a tremendous revolution happening every moment in your life, raising your consciousness to more and more glory and grandeur and splendor. Why distrust anybody?

People distrust because they are afraid that trust can make them vulnerable, people can cheat them easily. So they close themselves. They lock all the doors, all the windows so nobody can cheat them, nobody can deceive them. But they don't know that by locking all the doors, all the windows, they are preventing the sun to enter, they are preventing the fresh breeze to blow in, they are preventing the fragrances of the roses to come in. Of course, they have prevented the thieves also from coming in. What can thieves take away from you? You are just sad and miserable. Are you afraid they will take away your sadness and your misery? What have you got that you are worried about?

It happened to Mulla Nasruddin....

He used to sleep with all the windows open - according to my advice - all the doors open.... And naturally, a thief entered, and he collected everything in the house.

Mulla was sleeping on a blanket. Seeing that the man had collected everything, he threw his blanket also on his pile. The thief was surprised. He said, "I thought you were asleep."

Mulla said, "I was pretending."

"You are a strange man - I am a thief."

He said, "No worry. You can take everything away - I am coming with you. Because what does it matter in which house we live? I will live with you. And I have found a servant. I was looking for a servant, and it is so difficult nowadays to find a servant. You have come on your own. Now where is your house?"

What can people take away? Death is going to take it away at any moment. You have come into the world empty-handed, and you will go from the world empty-handed, so it does not matter. Between these two... What you have in your hands does not matter. What matters is that you lost trust, which is an immense treasure of your being.

By trusting everybody you can lose a few things. They may steal your money, but if you can continue to trust even those... trust is a great treasure. Trusting people who can cheat you, who are going to cheat you, is real trust.

I am not going to cheat you, I am not going to steal anything from your house. I have already stolen you. I am a different kind of man. When I have stolen you, I have stolen everything. Why bother about each thing separately - I do a wholesale job.

Now you don't have anything! You and all that you have belongs to me. So if people take away a few things, let me worry about it, you go on trusting.

But trust the whole of humanity. Whatever happens, don't lose your trust, because trust is so valuable. It is going to give you all that meditation can give, all that prayer can give, and without any effort. And if you can trust one human being, you know the knack of it and you can trust everybody.

My sannyasins have to remember it: trust everybody, because you have nothing to lose. But don't lose your trust, because that is such a great quality of your being that it will open your being to godliness.