Queston - Beloved Master

Queston - Beloved Master, Is it possible for a Master to take the pain of his disciples in helping them to understand their enlightenment, and in the process cause his body to become sick?

Osho - Amrito, it is possible for a master to take the pain of his disciples in helping them to understand their enlightenment, and in the process cause his body to become sick. Theoretically it is possible, but practically it is not.

When I say, theoretically it is possible, I mean, there is no barrier in its happening. But the problem is that the moment the master becomes enlightened, his grip over his own body comes to the minimum. Most of the people who have become enlightened have died either immediately or within a few minutes or a few hours. The experience is so great, and the shock to the system of the body is unabsorbable. Out of thousands, perhaps a few have survived. And there are reasons why they survived.

Osho Disciple pain

But they suffered tremendously from sicknesses. These are not sicknesses taken away from disciples, these are sicknesses intrinsic to the experience of enlightenment. Enlightenment means suddenly becoming aware that you are not the body, and a distance is created. The old identity that, "I am the body," was keeping you together. You start falling apart. Mostly, the shock is so much that people have died.

But it has not been discussed because to discuss it... People have thought, "Rarely does somebody become interested in enlightenment. And if you tell them that enlightenment means that you will have to suffer afterwards, then anybody will simply say, `Then why should we become enlightened? We are good as we are.'" That part has not been disclosed. But I don't want to keep anything secret, because I know my people can die celebrating, laughing, rejoicing. Death is not a fear to them.

Just today, Anubuddha was massaging me, because my hand has been in terrible pain for many weeks. He said, "You seem to be aware of every pain point, wherever I touch. I have never seen anybody..." And he is our best body worker -- very sensitive, very alert, very loving, and very successful.

His work is that ordinary people, who are identified with the body, should become more aware, if there is some pain or not. "But you are not identified with the body. Then how do you become aware? And so minutely?" Because I go on telling him, "This is the right point, this is where you should work." Nobody may have told him before, because you don't tell the body worker -- he is the expert, not you. And I go on telling him, "You missed a point just now." And he has to go back and he finds it. So he was asking... I told him, "After the massage." But then I forgot, so I said, "It is better to tell it now."

Once you are enlightened, a distance starts creating itself between you and your identity with the body. That does not mean that death is inevitable. It only means that now you will not be able to control the body in the same way you used to control it in the past. But it does not prevent your awareness; it gives you more awareness. You become a witness. Just as he is working on my body... for him it is only guess work, whether some point is a pain point or not. To me it is not guess work; I am seeing from within that it is a pain point.

Awareness comes with enlightenment, but awareness brings its own problems. Ramakrishna died of cancer, Maharishi Raman died of cancer, J. Krishnamurti suffered for forty years continuously with a terrific migraine. The migraine was so much, twenty-four hours a day, that he said, "Sometimes I feel like hitting my head against the wall and crushing it. The pain is unbearable."

Amrito, your question is created by the disciples, because disciples cannot understand -- "J. Krishnamurti suffering from migraine? No, it cannot be. There must be some hidden reason. He must have taken the migraines of many, many disciples." And then they feel satisfied -- a right explanation has been found.

Ramakrishna suffered from cancer, and his disciples go on writing that he had taken the cancer of some disciple. But even if you take the cancer of some disciple, that disciple is not going to become enlightened, so what is the point? The poor fellow was suffering with cancer. At least there was something -- you have taken even that.

In fact, if your body sicknesses can be taken by enlightened people, you will not think of becoming enlightened. It is better to be unenlightened and let the enlightened people take care of your sicknesses, and meanwhile enjoy -- unless accidentally you become enlightened, because then you cannot go back. That's what I mean when I say, theoretically it is possible. That needs some explanation.

You have two words in English, `sympathy' and `empathy'. Sympathy is when you feel superficially: somebody is miserable, somebody is sick and you feel sympathetic. You sit by the side, cry a little and then go on to the movies. What else to do? Your eyes are more clean, and now... Empathy means that you become so one with the person that sicknesses or anything can be transferred.

It happened in Ramakrishna's life. And I take Ramakrishna's story because others are very ancient, maybe just parables. Ramakrishna's was just in the last century. And there were hundreds of eye-witnesses, reports and not a single denial of the fact, what had happened.

Ramakrishna was going in the Ganges in a boat to the other side -- a few disciples were with him. Suddenly he started saying, "Don't beat me, don't beat me, it hurts! I say don't beat me!" And tears started coming to his eyes. And the disciples said, "But nobody is beating you. Is this a new game you are playing? We have seen many things you have done, but this is absolutely new."

But he was really crying and weeping and shouting, "Help me, save me! They will kill me!" The disciples said, "But what should we do? Because nobody is beating you, nobody is killing you."

When they reached the other shore, they found a sudra -- one of the untouchables, the lowest Hindu category of people, who are not treated like human beings -- was being beaten by his master, by his owner, because he had made some mistake. That man was half nude, and there was blood on his back and lines from the lashes.

Ramakrishna's people suddenly took away his shirt, and they could not believe it -- the backs were both exactly the same: blood oozing... And Ramakrishna said, "I was telling you, but you did not listen. They were beating me."

Then they looked at that man who was lying almost unconscious. He was a sudra but for Ramakrishna this stupid and criminal categorization of society did not exist. That sudra used to come to Ramakrishna, he was one of his devotees. Even Ramakrishna's own people used to say, "This sudra should not be allowed."

Ramakrishna said, "Then I should not be allowed either, because I don't see any difference. Everybody is born a sudra. Then if he becomes enlightened he can be a brahmin. If he becomes a warrior, he can be a chhatriya. If he becomes a businessman, he can be a vaishya. And if he remains in the lower kind of work -- shoemaker, butcher, fisherman -- then he should be a sudra. But as far as birth is concerned, everybody is born a sudra. It is the lifestyle and the raising of consciousness that can make a difference."

But this is not the definition of the Hindus, it is not the definition of manusmriti, the Hindu holy scripture that divides society into four classes. According to the scripture, everybody is born as a brahmin or as a chhatriya or as a sudra or as a vaishya. It is not action, it is birth that decides. Neither Mahavira believed it, nor Gautam Buddha believed it, nor Ramakrishna.

There was so much disturbance that Ramakrishna told the sudra, "When nobody is there... By the evening all these people go away" -- he used to live outside Calcutta, near the Ganges -- "and you can come then. You live on the other side, so if you cannot come, I can come. We can have a little chit-chat. And you play the flute so beautifully... you can play the flute."

The man was immensely in love with Ramakrishna and Ramakrishna showered his whole heart on him. What happened on that day was empathy: so much at-oneness that the same experience starts happening to both persons. That's why I say, theoretically it is possible. And once in a while it has happened, not because consciously enlightened people take other people's sicknesses and diseases on themselves, but accidentally, just like in the case of Ramakrishna.

The reality is that the enlightened person is somehow pulling together his body. He has lost all desires, all ambitions. He has no impetus for tomorrow. Even to breathe one more breath he has no reason for. So a great gap goes on growing. Awareness becomes more and more clean and clear, he can witness his own body from inside, but a witness is only a witness; he cannot do anything.

So all these stories that are being spread around, that some master took away a disease, are just an explanation to protect the so-called master. But how can a master fall sick? In fact, the master can fall sick more than anybody else, because he has separated himself from his body. The old clinging, the old grip is gone. Now it is a miracle that he goes on living for a few days. Hence he lives in a very calculated way.

You can see me: I live in such a calculated way that all that I do is speak to you. I have saved all my breath just to give you a sense of the eternal and an experience of the ultimate. And mostly I am asleep. You cannot find a more lazy man in the world. Just today my secretary, Hasya, was saying, "I am sending the information to THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS that my master has four hundred books to his name." And she was asking me other things also. I wanted to tell her, but I thought it was better not to say, that the miracle is that this man sleeps almost twenty hours a day and has managed four hundred books... And he is the laziest man in the world -- about that you can be certain; nobody can compete with me. You can send a challenge, to see if there is anybody.

Just a few days before, one sannyasin had asked that when I look at her she feels so loved, can I wink my eye? I said, "In my whole life I have not winked my eye. I can close both my eyes or I can open both." In fact, I am not doing the opening and closing, it happens on its own. But I don't think that it can happen on its own that one remains closed and one open. That is not possible.

Sitting in my dark room, I tried -- perhaps... But each time either both are open or both are closed -- and I am not doing anything, they are going on their own!
And then she said, "At least you can move your big toe." I said, "It is possible -- theoretically possible, but practically impossible. I have never done such a thing in my life. And at this stage, now, to start moving the toe will be too childish. And you know perfectly well, I don't move my leg." That is the difficulty poor Anubuddha has while massaging, because I don't move. I have told him, "You can do anything you want, but don't ask me... just don't say, `Do this, do that.' That I cannot do. If you can exercise for me, good."

My grandfather was very much interested in all kinds of gymnastics and he was always telling me to exercise. I said, "For what? Everybody dies, whether you exercise or not. And unnecessarily, suddenly getting tired before entering your grave... why not rest fully? Slip into your grave!"
He said, "You talk nonsense. If you exercise, you can live a few years longer."
I said, "For what? To exercise more?" It is a strange idea: live a few years more, and for what? -- to exercise. I dropped it.
He said, "You are incurable."
Before he was dying I told him, "Look, I have told you: exercise or no exercise, everybody has to die. When the ultimate destiny comes on its own, why unnecessarily walk to it?"
He said, "At least at the time of my death don't disturb me!"

Now something nonserious....

A drunk is hauled in off the street and taken before the magistrate, who asks him to explain his drunken behavior.
"Well," says the drunk, "I had ten bottles of whiskey in my cellar and was told by my wife to empty the contents of each and every bottle down the sink, or I'd be in trouble.
"So I withdrew the cork from the first bottle and poured the contents down the sink, with the exception of one glass, which I drank.
"I took the cork from the second bottle and did likewise with it, except for one glass, which I drank.
"I then withdrew the cork from the third bottle and poured the whiskey down the sink, which I drank.
"I pulled the cork from the fourth bottle down the sink, and poured the bottle from the cork of the next and drank one sink out of it and threw the rest down the glass.
"I pulled the sink out of the next glass and poured the cork down the bottle. Then I corked the sink with the glasses, bottled the drink and drank the pour.
"When I had everything emptied, I steadied the house with my hand, counted the glasses, corks, bottles and sinks with the other hand, which were twenty-nine, and as the house came by, I counted them again and finally had all the houses in one bottle, which I drank.
"I'm not under the affluence of incohol, as some tinkle peep I am. I'm not half as thunk as you might drink.
"I fool so feelish, I don't know who is me, and the drunker I stand here, the longer I get."

Source - Osho Book "Hari Om Tat Sat"

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