The Authentic Master
Osho,
I feel that only now I begin to see you. Until now, you were another projection of the father. A real master is not even a master. This total freedom scares me, and I don’t know how to live it. What is a real disciple? Does he exist? Or does he begin to exist only when he starts to be an individual?
The real master is only a presence. He has no intentions of being a master. His presence is his teaching. His love is his message. Every gesture of his hand is pointing to the moon. And this whole thing is not being done, it is a happening. The master is not a doer. He has learned the greatest secret of life: let-go.
The master has drowned his ego and the idea of separation from existence itself. He is no longer there as a separate entity, he is just a window. You can see through the window the infinite sky and the expanding universe: the sunrise, the sunset, a bird on the wing, the lotus opening its being, releasing its fragrance.
The master is certainly not one of the so-called masters you will find everywhere, pretending to be masters, posing as masters.
The master is just an immense emptiness.
And, naturally, the disciple is one who comes closer and closer to the same qualities: nonexistence of the ego; no separation from existence; an overflowing love, unconditional; a tremendous sensitivity to beauty…a great revolution – that you are not, existence is. The dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean.
The function of the master is to give you a taste of dissolving into the whole, of becoming part of this tremendously beautiful orchestra of existence. He has no creeds to teach you, no dogmas to preach to you, no catechism, no theologies. He is not to give you more slavery, more mental bondage.
That’s what all your so-called masters are doing. Somebody is making you a Christian, somebody is making you a Hindu, somebody is making you a Mohammedan. These are not masters. These are all phony, plastic, American – or better, Californian.
The authentic master is immense freedom.
To be close to him is to be close to the infinite sky, which knows no limits.
To be in his presence is to be lost, utterly lost.
Just now, you don’t exist. What exists is the silence that pervades five thousand people. You are melting in that silence.
A master is not a pretender. He does not declare that he is a master, he proves it – just by his presence. The presence of the master is the only miracle in the whole existence. And it is tremendously magnetic. Whoever is courageous enough and wants to explore this silence, this stillness, comes closer to the master.
Coming closer to the master is what is meant by disciplehood. It is not a surrender, it is not a belief, it is not faith.
It is an adventure, the ultimate adventure – because as you come closer to the master, you strangely feel that you are disappearing. The moment you are really close to the master, you are not. Neither the master is, nor the disciple is.
Then there is communion.
Then there is that transfer which no word can manage to communicate.
In that immense silence between two utterly absent but fully alert beings, there transpires the most exquisite, ecstatic experience of life.
You have come back home.
