Question – Beloved Osho, What is the difference between a Disciple and a Friend? Has the transformation amongst the sannyasins already happened?

Osho – The distinction between a disciple and a friend has two sides to it. First, from the side of the master it has happened. I don’t have any disciples anymore. You can relax.
From the disciples’ side it is going differently for different people. A few are relaxed — the transformation has taken place. A few are getting to be relaxed; a few are thinking to relax.

A few are unwillingly accepting the idea because to be a disciple was better: the master was responsible. Now the whole responsibility is thrown on you — and nobody wants to be responsible. Everybody wants to get rid of responsibility. There are a few who have not even heard it. They have listened to me, but it has not reached to their hearts. They still remain disciples.

So it will be different with different people, but sooner or later it has to be with every disciple, as far as I am concerned. He will have to come to drop the idea of disciplehood, and just be a friend. Your mind may give many arguments against it. You have to see through those arguments, that they are phony. For example, the mind may give very valid-looking arguments; such as, in going from being a disciple to a master to becoming his friend, you are losing reverence for the master.

That is not true. In fact, a master who allows you to be his friend is worthy of more reverence than any master who does not allow you to be his friend, who keeps you on a lower level — almost in a spiritual slavery as a disciple — and demands of you that you surrender, that you be committed. He asks you to trust him, but he does not trust you; otherwise there is no need to say, “Trust me.”

If I trust you, why is there a need to ask? My trust is enough: and my trust will know your trust, because trust creates a synchronicity, just as love creates a synchronicity. The masters who ask for surrender may be playing a game of spiritual ego. If they ask for commitment only to them, that means they are still living with the idea of possessiveness, monopoly, and they are afraid of losing you: you may get interested in somebody else. To avoid all those fears they want you to be committed so that you start feeling guilty if you feel some affinity with somebody else too.

A friend has no possessiveness. A friend wants you to be happy, wants you to be free, wants you to have all the joys of life, and has no conditions. But a friend cannot take responsibility for you: he cannot be your savior. He can help you on the path, he can show you the path, but you have to be strong enough to follow the path, to go alone like a lion.

Disciples go like sheep in a crowd. The bigger the crowd, the better the disciples feel; it is cozier, warmer, more comfortable. Just seeing that there are six hundred million Catholics, the pope feels that he must be a man of God; otherwise why should six hundred million people be following him?

It is a strange game of the ego. The crowd of sheep makes the so-called master feel that he is the shepherd. And then he starts making the crowd bigger, because a bigger crowd will make him a bigger shepherd, who owns more people. That becomes his number, his trip.

But these are not real masters. If the crowd leaves them, they will suddenly see themselves reduced to ordinary men — which in reality they are. It was the crowd which had given them a very magnified idea of themselves.

If a master allows the disciples to be friends, he is dispersing the crowd. He is making a personal contact. He is giving you equal status spiritually although he knows that much is still only potential in you, and much work has to be done so that it becomes actual. But whether it is potential or actual, your spiritual status is not lower.

That is the meaning when a master changes disciples into friends. He is giving you the recognition that you are as capable as himself. You may not be aware — that does not make any difference. At least to him it does not make any difference. To you it makes a difference that you are not aware, but that is the work that you have to do. And the work can be done more lovingly in friendship, in love, than it can be done in a certain relationship in which you are lower, inferior, a sinner — and somebody else is higher, superior, a saint.

I don’t think the reverence for such a man who makes you his friends will be less. It will be more. So don’t listen to your arguments which will try to keep you in the old relationship. It has never been done, it is true, but you can see the result: the whole humanity is proof — so many masters and so many disciples… and the world is just in a mess. People are as mad as ever. No basic change in humanity has happened.

Something in the fundamentals has to be changed. And this is one of the fundamentals: the relationship between the master and the disciple. It has to be changed. A new dimension has to be given to it. And once it becomes a transforming force, in the future no master will be able to go on playing the old game. This can become a milestone.

But as far as I am concerned, it is absolutely a fact. As far as you are concerned, there are degrees. But it has to be in you too — a one hundred percent change from disciplehood to friendship. And you will see a miracle happen, because love has never been praised so much, friendship has never been raised so high; and my whole effort is to make everything that is mundane, sacred.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – Beloved Osho, Sometimes it seems as if you are more surrendered to us than we are to you. Please comment.

Osho – It is true. I am not surrendered to you, to my people particularly. But because I have got rid of the ego, I am simply surrendered to the whole of existence — and you are part of it. So it can be felt that I am more surrendered to you than you are to me. It is a truth.

But it should be so. I should be more loving to you than you can be to me. I should be more understanding towards you than you can be towards me. In every sphere you are still growing, still finding the way, struggling with all the nonsense that has been forced upon you. And I am free of it. So my love will be purer than yours, my trust will be greater than yours.

It looks very absurd — that’s why the question has arisen — because the disciple should surrender to the master, not the master to the disciple. The disciple should trust the master, not the master trust the disciple. But these things must have been said by people who were not masters; otherwise the master is in a state of surrender — it does not matter to whom.

The master is in a state of love — it does not matter to whom. The master is simply a pure understanding. You are searching for it — he has found it. But there is no need to feel any guilt that you are not more surrendered, that you are not more trusting. It is a natural thing; there is no question of guilt.

In my life I have trusted so many people, and so many people have deceived me. But my trust is the same. It is not that their deception has made me withdraw my trust in humanity. Even if the whole humanity deceives me, then too, I will be in a state of trust.

It has nothing to do with the person who deceives; that is his problem. And I don’t have any condemnation either: he did what he could, and I am doing what I can. So do not even for a moment feel guilty that you are not up to standard.

You will be able to surrender to the master in the same way as the master has surrendered only when you become the master — not before that. And that is the only thing every authentic master wants — that every disciple of his becomes a master and brings all his uniqueness and all his flavor to the phenomenon.

Source – from Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – Beloved Master, What If you are not the real Master? Would It still be good for me to be with you?

Osho – You are asking about a real master. I am not even a master, so the question of being real or unreal does not arise. This is the same game in different ways — the rulers, the ruled, the exploiters, the exploited; and in the spiritual world, the masters and the disciples, the saints and the sinners. But the division goes on and on.

Can’t you live without division? Is there any necessity to divide? I am not a master, and I have never been a disciple either. I have matured and centered and meditated, searched and found myself on my own accord. I have never followed anybody, and I don’t want you to follow anybody — me included.

I am just a man who has awakened, and you are still asleep. The difference is not much. You can be shocked, shaken and awakened — just a little cold water on your eyes and you will be awakened. I don’t do such drastic things, because I don’t want to interfere in your beautiful dreams. Even to interfere in anybody’s dreams, to me, is violence. You can be pulled out of the bed and given a good slap on the face and you will be awake.

But I don’t want to do such drastic things. It is transgressing, trespassing in your individual world. If you want to decide to sleep a little more, what is the harm? I have never heard that anybody has done any harm while he is asleep.

In fact, there is a story about Nadirshah, one of the most ugly monsters who has happened on this earth. He was really and absolutely inhuman.

Once, while he was invading India, a very beautiful prostitute was brought in the night to give him some entertainment, and while she was going back, she said she was afraid: “It is dark, and I have to go seven miles.”

Nadirshah said, “You don’t understand that you have been a guest of Nadirshah. You will not go in the darkness; you will go in light.”
The woman said, “But how can I go in light? It is the middle of the night.”

Nadirshah told his soldiers, “Put fire to all the villages on the way, all the forests on the way, so the prostitute can go in light to her place.”
Many villages were put on fire, the forests were put on fire. The prostitute could not believe that this can be a way to go in light.

This man, Nadirshah, heard about a great wise man in India, and he asked him to come. The wise man said, “To come to you will be enough proof that I am not wise, so the thing will be useless. You will have to come to the well.”

Nadirshah felt intrigued and excited too. He had never seen anybody disobey him. This man must have some guts. He went to the man and he felt some strange aura and energy around him.

He said, “I have come. I want to ask you: it is said in the scriptures that to sleep too much is bad, but I love to sleep. In fact, I drink too much, and then to get up becomes difficult. The hangover… and then it is better to have more to drink and go to sleep again. What is your suggestion? Should I stop it?”

The old man said, “No. Whatever the scriptures say means nothing. They were not written for you. They had no idea that a man like you will take instructions from the books. I would suggest you should sleep twenty-four hours, you should sleep forever. There is no need to wake up.”

Nadirshah said, “This is strange advice. Twenty-four hours? Forever?”
The old man said, “Yes. Although it is against all the scriptures, but I say on my own authority that people like you need twenty-four hours of sleep, because whenever you are awake you will do some mischief. Asleep, much violence, much war, much trouble to the world will be stopped.”

So there is not much wrong. And I never trespass, I just persuade from the outside of your bedroom. I don’t even get in your bedroom, because to get in your bedroom without your permission is not right. And how to ask a sleeping man, “May I come in, sir?” So my whole work takes place outside your bedroom.

I create devices outside your bedroom. For example, I may scream suddenly that the house is on fire. I have not done anything to you. And hearing that the house is on fire — even in sleep people hear that. It is strange. They will not hear great advice in sleep, but if you say, “The house is on fire!” they will immediately hear it, and they will run out of the house.

That is up to you. It is not my responsibility. One thing I know: when you come out and you see the sunrise and the birds singing and the beautiful sky so colorful, and the flowers, you will be grateful to me — although the house is not on fire.

But I can lie. I don’t think this lie harms anybody. And all enlightened people have to lie, because truth cannot be said to you. You won’t understand it; you are fast asleep, snoring. Secondly, truth cannot be said in language. The moment you put the experience of truth in language, it becomes untrue.

So, rather than distorting the truth and making it untrue, it is far better to create a device — which is a lie. But it works! I have brought many people out of their bedroom, asking “Where is the fire?”
And I say, “I don’t know. Just once in a while I get this urge to call ‘The house is on fire!’”

I don’t know the responsibility of the leader; I don’t know the responsibility of the led. I know the responsibility of love. I know the responsibility of the beloved. When love calls you, listen to it. That’s the only responsibility. When love says something to you, let it enter into the deepest core of your being.

When love knocks on your door, open the door. The real beloved, in fact, does not close the door at all, but waits at the door for the lover to come, so that he need not even knock. Sannyas is a love affair. It has nothing to do with ruled and the rulers, leaders and the led. It has certainly to do with love and lovers. And the beauty of love is: it does not create hierarchy.

I may be enlightened, you may not be enlightened, but because I love you, I am not holier than you. Because I love you, I declare that you have every capacity, ability, potentiality to be enlightened. It is just a question of your decision.

But I cannot impose the decision on you. At the most, love persuades. And love has many ways to persuade. It is only hate that imposes. Just looking into your eyes is a persuasion, is a message. Just the gesture of my hand is to touch your heart.

The silence that I love — and I speak only to give you these few small pauses of silence. Just look at this silence, and we all have become one. All divisions are lost and there is an immense peace, a tremendous feeling of joy arising in you. I want to give you the taste of enlightenment in as many ways as possible, so one day finally you say, “Okay. I am going to wake up now.”

Source – from Osho Book “From Bondage to Freedom”

Question – It has been said that a disciple should have respectful manners and a Respectful attitude towards his Master, but often i feel like asking you Playful, Joking and Naughty questions. Does this indicate lack of Respect And ’Shraddha’, Trust?
Osho – It does not depend on the question, it depends on the questioner. The question is irrelevant. You can ask a playful, joking, naughty question with deep respect. There is no problem about it. In fact without deep respect how can you ask such a question? If you love the master and you love him so deeply, you respect him and you respect him so deeply, then you are free to ask anything.

It depends on the questioner, not on the question. If the questioner is in a deep love and trust with the master, then everything is allowed. He can ask any sort of question. But if the trust doesn’t exist in the questioner you can ask a very serious and respectful question but it is just formal respect – deep down there is no respect.

Try to understand the quality of the questioning heart. If there is trust, then whatsoever you ask is good; if there is no trust, then whatsoever you ask is no good. You can ask anything you feel like asking, but before you ask, just try to see within yourself why you are asking it. If there is trust, trust makes everything holy. In the East, trust has been such a deep-rooted phenomenon that disciples have asked questions which in the West you could not even imagine. Nobody can imagine asking such questions about Jesus as people in the East have asked about Buddha.

A Zen master, Mumon, asked his master: What do you say about the Buddha-nature in a dog? Is a dog also a Buddha? Is there any possibility of a dog being a Buddha ever? And what did the master do? You know? He started walking on all fours and he barked. This was his answer: Yes, a dog is also Buddha, the possibility is there always, howsoever far away from Buddha he is now someday he will also reach the goal.

You can ask any question, but before you ask it always find out from where it comes – from your love, trust? Then everything is good. You may be simply formal, serious, asking your question in a very soft and gentlemanly way, but if the heart is not there, it is dead. In fact, that is disrespect.

Source: from Osho Book “Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 2″

Question – Beloved Master, What Does it mean to be a Disciple?
Osho – Prem Samadhi, it is one of the most delicate mysteries. No definition is possible of a disciple, but a few hints can be given, just fingers pointing to the moon. Don’t cling to the fingers — look at the moon and forget the fingers.

A disciple is a rare phenomenon. It is very easy to be a student because the student is searching knowledge. The student can only meet the teacher, he can never meet the master. The reality of the master will remain hidden to the student. The student functions from the head. He functions logically, rationally. He gathers knowledge, he becomes more and more knowledgeable. Finally in his own turn he will become a teacher, but all that he knows is borrowed, nothing is really his own.

His existence is pseudo; it is a carbon-copy existence. He has not known his original face. He knows about God, but he does not know God himself. He knows about love, but he has never dared to love himself. He knows much about poetry, but he has not tasted the spirit of poetry itself. He may talk about beauty, he may write treatises on beauty, but he has no vision, no experience, no existential intimacy with beauty. He has never danced with a roseflower. The sunrise happens there outside, but nothing happens inside his heart. That darkness inside him remains the same as it was before.

He talks only about concepts, he knows nothing of truth — because truth cannot be known through words, scriptures. A student is interested only in words, scriptures, theories, systems of thought, philosophies, ideologies.

A disciple is a totally different phenomenon. A disciple is not a student; he is not interested in knowing about God, love, truth — he is interested in becoming God, in becoming truth, in becoming love. Remember the difference. Knowing about is one thing, becoming is totally different. The student is taking no risk; the disciple is going into the uncharted sea. The student is miserly, he is a hoarder; only then he can gather knowledge. He is greedy; he accumulates knowledge as the greedy person accumulates wealth — knowledge is his wealth. The disciple is not interested in hoarding; he wants to experience, he wants to taste, and for that he is ready to risk all.

The disciple will be able to find the master. The relationship between a student and a teacher is that of the head, and a relationship between a disciple and a master is that of the heart — it is a love relationship, mad in the eyes of the world, utterly mad. In fact, no love is so total as the love that happens between the master and the disciple. The love that happened between John and Jesus, the love that happened between Sariputta and Buddha, Gautama and Mahavira, Arjuna and Krishna, Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu — these are the real love stories, the highest pinnacles of love.

The disciple starts melting into the master. The disciple destroys all distance between himself and the master; the disciple yields, the disciple surrenders, the disciple effaces himself. He becomes a nonentity, he becomes a nothingness. And in that nothingness his heart opens. In that absence his ego has disappeared and the master can penetrate into his being.

The disciple is receptive, vulnerable, unguarded; he drops all armor. He drops all defense measures. He is ready to die. If the master says, “Die!” he will not wait for a single moment. The master is his soul, his very being; his devotion is unconditional and absolute. And to know absolute devotion is to know God. To know absolute surrender is to know the secret-most mystery of life.

The word ‘disciple’ is also beautiful — it means one who is ready to learn. Hence the word ‘discipline’ — discipline means creating a space for learning. And disciple means being ready to learn. Who can be ready to learn? Only one who is ready to drop all his prejudices. If you come as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan, you can’t be a disciple. If you simply come as a human being, with no a priori prejudice, with no belief, then only you can become a disciple.

A disciple is the rarest flowering of human consciousness, because beyond the disciple there is only one peak more — the master. And one who has been totally a disciple one day becomes a master. Disciplehood is a process of becoming a master. But one should not start with the idea of becoming a master; otherwise one is going to miss, because then it is again an ego trip. One should come simply to evaporate.

You have lived through the ego, and your life has been just a misery and nothing else. Enough is enough! One day the realization comes that, “I have wasted a great opportunity by constantly listening to my own ego. It has been driving me onto unnecessary paths which lead nowhere, and it has been creating a thousand and one miseries.” The day one realizes that “The ego is the root cause of my misery,” one starts searching for a place where the ego can be dropped. The master is an excuse to drop the ego.

You can drop your ego only if you come across a person who catches hold of your heart so tremendously that his being becomes more important than your own being, that you can sacrifice all that you have for him.

Just a few days ago, I received a letter from Gunakar from Germany. In German newspapers a statement of Teertha’s has been given too much importance and has been criticized — and it can be criticized, manipulated, because what has happened in Jonestown has become the talk of the world. Somebody, a journalist from Germany, has asked Teertha, “If your master asks you to shoot yourself, to kill yourself, what are you going to do?” And Teertha said, “There is no question of thinking at all. I will kill myself immediately.”

Now, this statement can be manipulated in such a way that the place that I am creating is going to be another Jonestown. Teertha has said it out of his heart; he has not been political, diplomatic; otherwise he would have avoided such a statement. He had simply said what a disciple is bound to say.

The disciple is ready. In fact to say that he is ready to die is something less than the truth. The disciple has already died into the master; it is not going to happen in the future, it has already happened. It has happened the day the disciple accepted the master as his master: since then he has been no more, only the master lives in him.

Slowly slowly, the presence of the master overfloods the disciple. And the presence of the master is not really the presence of the master himself: the master is overflooded with God. The master is only a vehicle, a passage, a messenger; it is God flowing through the master. When the disciple surrenders to the master totally he is really surrendering to God in the guise of the master. God he cannot see yet, but the master he can see, and in the master he can see something godly. The master becomes the first proof of God to him. Surrendering to the master is surrendering to the visible God.

And, slowly slowly, as the surrender deepens, the visible disappears into the invisible. The master disappears. When the disciple reaches into the innermost heart of the
master, he does not find the master there but God himself, life itself — indefinable, inexpressible.
Prem Samadhi, your question is significant. You ask, “What does it mean to be a disciple?”
It means death and it means resurrection. It means dying into the master and being reborn through the master.