Question: I have been reading, listening to you, Osho, Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, for the last one year. I have a peculiar situation. Having attained a lot of peace, now I am finding difficult to read or listen. Somehow I feel, I am going away from peace, by doing that. Everything that can be read or listened to, seems to be already known and I don’t find anything new. I do not know whether it is my mind playing some game, or is it okay to be in that situation. Or am I just being arrogant? Now I just want to be myself and probably looking for blogging and take the role of the teacher which will clear my knowing more. I want to be tested.
Thanks again. Please comment if it’s worth it.
Acharya Prashant: You see, the ways of mind can be very tricky.
The mind by definition is that, which keeps feeling incomplete and does whatever it does with a purpose. The purpose is to gain something. The purpose is to reach somewhere. The purpose is to advance. Become better. Progress.
You are now saying that anytime you listen to me, Osho, JK, Nisargadatta, it seems that you already know what you are listening to and you do not get anything new. Don’t you see, what these words reveal? These words reveal that the mind is still quite ambitious and looking for something. The mind is saying, “I will go to Krishnamurti only if he gives me something new, otherwise, I will not go to him.” Is this a relationship of love?
If I will go to you I will demand that I get something from you. If I am not getting something from you, then I will say, “I am stopping listening to you. I will not read you any further. As long as you were able to provide me and stuff me with knowledge, I loved you, I respected you, I came close to you. Now I find that I have read a lot and everything appears to be repetitive, so I will no more listen to you.”
The relationship between teacher and student is not that of the giver and the taker. The relationship is of the lover and the lover. Yes, the student comes to learn a lot, but learning cannot be the purpose, it cannot be the objective and the driver. If the student goes to the teacher, the central reason is love. The central reason is not, one’s acquisitiveness for knowledge. And if you are going to a teacher in order to get something, you will probably get what you are going to get, but rest assured, very soon you will find yourself saturated and ready to leave the teacher.
You went to have some knowledge and you got it. And your tragedy is, you got nothing. The teacher’s role is not to burden you with more knowledge. I am talking about the spiritual teacher. His role is not to give you knowledge. You already have so much knowledge. But you have co-opted, even the teacher. And you think you are very smart, very clever. I went there and I got whatever he had to give. Now, I have exhausted him. Now he has nothing more to give me.
The fact is that if you are clever enough, you will exhaust every teacher very soon. Because the Truth is so simple. There is hardly anything exciting, complicated or new about it. What one teacher is saying, the other teacher says exactly that, maybe in another language, maybe using other methods.
Some of the Upanishads are just a few pages, two pages, four pages. And the very depths of the Truth are reflected in them. That’s all that it takes. Two pages. You will very soon, exhaust them. They are over for you.
Do you know, that is why, in India, the tradition is of repetition. It does not matter, how many times have you read Gita, you read it again, every morning. You do not say, that you know I know this story already, why should I again go to it? I know that old man already. The gentle one. Yes yes yes. Krishnamurti. And that rough one? Oh! Him too. Nisargadatta. I know both of them. Inside out I have exhausted them. Now, why should I go to them?
You go to them because you love them. Don’t you know your child? Don’t you go back to him every day? Or do you say, “Oh! I know him?” Why should I return to him? Don’t you know your wife inside out? Why do you keep going to her again and again? But, with Krishnamurti, you are saying, “Oh! nothing new.” Why am I going to him? Why does one go to anybody? Love does not ask these questions? And remember, that if knowledge does not quickly sublimate into love, it will become a very heavy burden. A very heavy burden.
L: So, are you saying that we should be careful before getting knowledge, because if it doesn’t sublimate…
AP: If you are careful, then that ‘care’ is knowledge. If you are doing anything, that will arise from your knowledge. Now, I know that I must be? Careful. Don’t you see that this is another piece of knowledge?
You have to be watchful. And watchfulness cannot arise from memory. Slumber can arise from memory. Watchfulness cannot. Because watchfulness is about watching memory as well. Now, watcher of the memory cannot be a piece of memory.
L: If everybody becomes Osho, and that’s what Osho will also want. Then why will anybody go to Osho? Osho too will not feel offended if people do not come to him.
AP: It’s not like that. You see, what do you mean by Osho?
When we say Osho, we see the man wearing a certain costume, talking in a certain way. We are referring to again, the person. If you will ask Osho, who is he, he will say, “I am the same heart that speaks through Krishnamurti, that speaks through Paramhans.” That’s what Osho is.
So, when you say that Osho wants everybody to become Osho. you are perfectly right. But that does not mean that one Osho will be the same as the other Osho. Oshoness will be there. Oshos will not be there. And Oshoness is not something that is owned by the person Osho. the person Osho is the one, who has surrendered to Oshoness. Oshoness is the same Truth, that runs through generations of seekers and mystics. That is what is Oshoness. Alright?
Your question is if everybody becomes Osho, and that’s what Osho will also want. Then why will anybody go to Osho. And you are saying, Osho too will not feel offended if people do not come to him.
Osho will feel bad, if people do not come to him, because, his life purpose is to, as Krishnamurti said, set man unconditionally free. So, he does want people to come to him. That’s what his life work is. But he does not want people to come to him as patients and continue to remain patients. The first time you go to him, you go to him because you need something or seek something. Then when you go to him, you go to him because you do not need anything.
In both the situations, you still go.
In the first situation, you go as a seeker. In the second situation, you go as a lover. In the first situation, you go because you want something. In the second situation you go because you now no more want anything, hence you are free to go without wants. But you still do go.
See, the ego can play great mischiefs. In the name of saying that now I have achieved Osho-hood, so I do not need to go to Osho anymore. Or now, that I have arrived, hence why should I be in the teacher’s company anymore? The ego will only preserve itself. It is very easy, to declare, that I am already there so I do not need the teacher. I am already healthy, so I do not need the doctor. In the name of these statements, the disease will be preserved. Are you getting this?
Yes?
L: How do you find a teacher?
AP: The teacher is trying very hard to find you.
(Laughter)
Co-operate with him.
L: Ramkrishna Paramhansa was trying very hard for Swami Vivekananda.
AP: And Swami Vivekananda resisted Paramhans quite badly.
L: Yes
AP: So, don’t resist. That’s all that is needed. Paramhans is looking for you. Vivekananda, on one hand, was claiming that he wants a teacher. On the other hand, Paramhans was physically chasing him. You know of that incident, right? Vivekananda is running, and Paramhans is running behind him. Trying to chase him.
Don’t run away. Paramhans is on the lookout. Just don’t run away.
(Laughter)
L: There are a lot of teachers out there.
AP: (Smilingly)Run away.
Only the real one would be able to catch you. Only the real one will be able to catch you. When the real one catches you, then remain caught. The proof of the real teacher will be that you will feel a morbid fear in his company, and parallelly, a life-giving attraction will be there. Both, death like fear, and lively feeling of love, will parallelly arise.
L: It seems like a paradox.
AP: Yes. and that’s what you will experience. It’s a rarity. Right? Paradoxes are not seen frequently. A paradox, by definition, is an impossibility. The teacher is that impossibility. The real teacher is a personified impossibility.
One hand, he attracts, on the other hand, you feel like running away. If you feel only like running away, then run away. If you feel only like attraction, then too, you must run away. When you feel both. Then stay where you are, and let Paramhans catch you by the throat.
L: Every time the same fair is there. Every time you play the flute. The tune is the same but it seems new every time. Every time you make me dance, every time you make me laugh.
AP: This work is his only, that is why he keeps on doing it. Let him do, he doesn’t get tired. He is the non-doer but at the same time, he is the absolute doer. He takes great fun in playing the flute, making you dance. Does everything without doing. He has no problem at all. Then let him do. Making us dance is his work, dancing is your work, you dance free. He dictates, let yourself be free for the dictation. And don’t even think that you have to take the decision that is how will I reach and how did you. He is making us walk, keep walking.
