Osho on Master Disciple Relationship

Osho - There are relationships and relationships, but none is comparable to the relationship that exists between the master and the disciple. All other relationships are conditional, even the best. For example, a love relationship is still demanding. The only relationship which is unconditional, undemanding, is that which exists between the master and the disciple. In fact, it is so rare, so unique, that it should not be categorized with other relationships. It is the poverty of language that makes us call something a relationship which is not a relationship. It is a merger, it is a meeting -- for no reason at all.

The disciple is not asking anything, and the master is not promising anything; yet there is thirst in the disciple and there is promise in the master. It is a closeness in which nobody is higher and nobody is lower -- yet the disciple is a woman, always a woman, because the disciple is nothing but an opening, a womb, a receptivity. And the master is always a man, because the master is nothing but a giving, a giving for no other reason than that he is so full. He has to give. He is a rain cloud.

Just as the disciple is in search, the master is also in search. The disciple is in search of where he can open himself without any fear, without any resistance, without holding anything back -- totally. And the master is also in search of such a human being who can receive the mysterious, who is ready to be pregnant with the mysterious, who is ready to be reborn.

There are many teachers, and there are many students. The teachers have borrowed knowledge. They may be very scholarly, very knowledgeable, but inside themselves there is darkness; their knowledge is hiding their ignorance. And there are students who are in search of knowledge. The master and the disciple is a totally different thing.

The master does not give you knowledge, he shares his being. And the disciple is not in search of knowledge, he is in search of being. He is, but he does not know who he is. He wants to be revealed to himself, he wants to stand naked before himself. The master can only do a simple thing, and that is to create trust. Everything else happens. The moment the master is capable of creating trust, the disciple drops his defenses, drops his clothes, drops his knowledge. He becomes just a child again -- innocent, alert, alive -- a new beginning.

The ordinary father and mother have given birth to your body -- that is one life, which will end in death. Your father and mother are responsible for your birth and for your death. The master also gives a new birth, but it is the birth of consciousness, which knows only a beginning -- and there is no end to it. All that is needed is an atmosphere of absolute trust -- and in that trust, things start happening on their own; neither does the disciple do them nor does the master. The disciple receives them.

The master is the vehicle of the universal forces -- just like a hollow bamboo that can become a flute. But the song is not of the hollow bamboo; the hollow bamboo can have the credit only of not destroying the song, of allowing it. The master is a medium of the universal consciousness. If you are available, suddenly the universal consciousness stirs in you the sleeping, dormant consciousness. The master has not done anything. The disciple has not done anything. It is all a happening.

The ancient stories are significant, to be remembered. Seekers went through hundreds of teachers until they came to a man in whose presence suddenly the trust was there -- they had arrived. Masters were moving..... There is a beautiful story.

Gautam Buddha comes into a town. The whole town has gathered to listen to him but he goes on waiting, looking backwards at the road -- because a small girl, not more than thirteen years old, has met him on the road and told him, "Wait for me. I am going to give this food to my father at the farm, but I will be back in time. But don't forget, wait for me."

Finally, the elders of the town say to Gautam Buddha, "For whom are you waiting? Everybody important is present; you can start your discourse." Buddha says, "But the person for whom I have come so far is not yet present and I have to wait."

Finally the girl arrives and she says, "I am a little late, but you kept your promise. I knew you would keep the promise, you had to keep the promise because I have been waiting for you since I became aware... maybe I was four years old when I heard your name. Just the name, and something started ringing a bell in my heart. And since then it has been so long -- ten years maybe -- that I have been waiting."

And Buddha says, "You have not been waiting uselessly. You are the person who has been attracting me to this village." And he speaks, and that girl is the only one who comes to him: "Initiate me. I have waited enough, and now I want to be with you." Buddha says, "You have to be with me because your town is so far off the way that I cannot come again and again. The road is long, and I am getting old." In that whole town not a single person came up to be initiated into meditation -- only that small girl.

In the night when they were going to sleep, Buddha's chief disciple Ananda asked, "Before you go to sleep I want to ask you one question: do you feel a certain pull towards a certain space -- just like a magnetic pull?" And Buddha said, "You are right. That's how I decide my journeys. When I feel that somebody is thirsty -- so thirsty that without me, there is no way for the person -- I have to move in that direction."

The master moves towards the disciple. The disciple moves towards the master. Sooner or later they are going to meet.The meeting is not of the body, the meeting is not of the mind. The meeting is of the very soul -- as if suddenly you bring two lamps close to each other; the lamps remain separate but their flames become one. Between two bodies when the soul is one, it is very difficult to say that it is a relationship. It is not, but there is no other word; language is really poor. It is at-oneness.

Source: from the book “Osho Upanishad, Session 16, Question 3”

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