A master, a guru, is nothing but a window

Those who disbelieve it are fools, who ever wallow in misery and sorrow. To strive for liberation one should rely on a guru. When your mind receives his blessing emancipation is at hand.

Why believe in a guru? Why believe in a master? – because the unknown is very far from you. It is just a dream, a hope at the most, a wish-fulfillment.

You listen to me; I may talk about the bliss, but that bliss remains a word. You may desire it, but you don’t know what it is, you don’t know the taste of it. It is very very far away from you. You are deep in misery, in anguish. In your misery and anguish you may start hoping, expecting, desiring bliss, but that will not help – you need a real taste of it. Who will give it to you? Only one who has tasted it: he can become the opener. He can act like a catalytic agent. He will not do anything; just his presence, and from him the unknown flows towards you. He is just like a window. Your doors are closed? – his doors are not closed. Your windows are closed and you have forgotten how to open them? – his windows are not closed. Through his window you can have a look at the sky; through him you can have a glimpse.

A master, a guru, is nothing but a window. One has to pass through him, one has to have a little taste – then you can also open your own windows; otherwise the whole thing remains verbal. You can read Tilopa, but unless you find Tilopa nothing will happen to you. Your mind may go on, saying, “Maybe this man is mad, in some hallucination, dreaming, a philosopher, thinking, a poet.” But how can this happen? How is it possible for you to be blissful? You have known only misery and suffering, you have known only poison. You cannot believe in elixir; you have not known it so how can you believe it?

A master is nothing but a personified phenomenon of the total bliss. In him it is there vibrating. If you trust him, his vibrations can reach you. A master is not a teacher, he doesn’t teach you. A master is not concerned with doctrines and principles – a master is a presence. If you trust him, he is available. A master is an availability. Through him you will have the first glimpse of the divine. Then you can go on your own.

To strive for liberation one should rely… On a master… On a guru. When your mind receives his blessing emancipation is at hand.

A master cannot give you emancipation, but he can bring you to the very brink of it. He cannot give you the emancipation; that has to be achieved by you, because a thing given by someone can be taken by someone else. Only that which is yours can be yours. A master cannot give you, he can only bless you – but his blessing is a vital phenomenon. Through him you can look into your own future. Through him you can be aware of your own destiny. Through him the farthest peaks come nearer, closer. Through him you start coming up, like a seed trying to sprout towards the sky. His blessing can water your seed.

In the East, the blessing of the master is very very significant. The West has remained completely unaware of the phenomenon. The West knows teachers, not masters. Teachers are those who teach you about truth. A master is one who gives you the taste of it. A teacher may be someone who does not know himself, he may have learned from other teachers. Seek a master. Teachers are many, masters are few.

And how will you seek a master? Just move. Whenever you hear a rumor that somebody has become enlightened, go and remain available. Don’t be much of a thinker, be more of a lover – because a master is found through feeling. A teacher is found through thinking: listen to the teacher, his logical appeal will be there, his arguments. Eat the master, drink the master. Listening won’t help because he is a living phenomenon; the energy is there. If you drink and eat him, then only you will become aware of a different quality of being.

A great receptivity is needed, a great feminine receptivity is needed to find the master. And if you are available and a living master is there, suddenly something clicks. There is nothing to do on your part – you simply be there. It is such a vital energy phenomenon that if you are available something simply clicks, you are caught. It is a love phenomenon. You cannot prove to anybody else, “I have found the master.” There is no proof. Don’t try that because anybody can bring proof against it. You have found it and you know it; you have tasted and you know it. This knowledge is of the heart, of the feeling.

Says Tilopa: To strive for liberation one should rely on a guru. When your mind receives his blessings emancipation is at hand.

The very word “guru” is meaningful. The “master” doesn’t carry that significance. The master seems to be someone who has mastered a thing, gone under a long training, has become disciplined, has become a master. “Guru” is totally different.

The word “guru” means one who is very very heavy, a heavy cloud just waiting for your thirst to pour down; a flower heavy with perfume just waiting for your nostrils to be there and it will penetrate. The word “guru” means heavy, very heavy – heavy with energy and the unknown, heavy with the divine, heavy like a woman who is pregnant.

A master is pregnant with God. That’s why in the East we call the guru, God itself. The West cannot understand it because they think “God” means the creator of the world. We don’t bother much about the creator here. We call the guru, God. Why? – because he is pregnant with the divine; he is heavy with the divine. He is ready to pour down; only your thirst, a thirsty earth is needed.

He has not mastered anything in fact; he has not gone through any training, he has not disciplined himself. It is not art that he has become a master of – no. He has lived life in its totality; not as a discipline, but natural and loose. He has not forced himself. He has been moving with the winds; he has allowed nature to have its own course. And through millions of experiences of suffering and pain and bliss and happiness he has become mature, he has become ripe. A guru is a ripe fruit just waiting to fall, heavy. If you are ready to receive, he can fall into you.

A guru is a totally Eastern phenomenon. The West is not yet aware of it. In the West it is difficult to feel. Why go and bow down to a guru? Why put your head at his feet? Looks humiliating. But if you want to receive, you have to bow down. He is heavy, he can pour, but then you have to bow down, otherwise you won’t receive it.

When a disciple with total trust bows down at the feet of his master, something is happening there which is not visible to the eyes. An energy is falling from the master, entering the disciple. Something invisible to the eyes is happening there. If you become aware you can see it also – the aura of the master, his rainbow, pouring himself down into the disciple. You will see it in fact happening.

The master is heavy with divine energy. And he has infinite energy now, he can pour it down to infinite disciples. He can work with millions of disciples alone. He is never exhausted because now he is connected with the whole; he has found the source of all. Through him you can also take the jump into that abyss. Surrender towards God is difficult because you don’t know where God is. He has never given his address to anybody ever. But a guru can be found. If you ask me what a guru is, I will tell you: the guru is the address of God.

When your mind receives his blessings emancipation is at hand.

Then you can be certain that you have been accepted. When you can feel the master’s blessings pouring on you, showering on you like flowers, you can be certain emancipation is at hand.

It happened:

One of Buddha’s disciples, Sariputta, one day bowed down at Buddha’s feet. Suddenly he felt the energy falling on him. He felt a sudden transformation, a mutation of his whole mind, as if he was being destroyed and created again. He cried, “No! Wait a little.” The whole assembly of Buddha’s disciples could not understand what was happening. And he said, “Wait a little – not so soon!”

Buddha said, “But why?”

He said, “Then these feet will be lost to me. Wait a little. Emancipation is at hand and I would like to be with you a little longer. Don’t push me away so soon” – because once the master has blessed and the emancipation is at hand, this is the last thing: one has to say goodbye to the master. Sariputta said, “Wait!”

Sariputta became enlightened later on. Buddha told him, “Now you go. I waited enough. Now you go and spread whatsoever I have given to you, go and give it to others.”

Sariputta had to go, weeping and crying. Somebody asked, “You have become enlightened and you weep and cry?”

He said, “Yes, I have become enlightened – but I can throw away the bliss of enlightenment if Buddha allows me to live at his feet.”

Such deep gratitude – and then wherever Sariputta lived, every day in the morning he would bow down to the direction where he knew Buddha was moving. And people asked him again and again, “Why do you do this? To whom do you bow down?” He said, “Buddha is moving in the south.”

When the last days of Sariputta came, he inquired, “Where is Buddha right now? – because I would like to die bowing down in that direction.” And he died bowing down in the direction where Buddha was. When the energy is received, when the final benediction comes from the master – the emancipation is at hand – one has to say goodbye.

In Zen, when a disciple comes to a master in Japan, he brings his mat. He unrolls his mat before the master, sits on the mat, listens to the master; every day comes, follows whatsoever he says, leaves the mat there – for years together. Then the day he receives the final blessing, he rolls up the mat again, takes the mat back, bows down, leaves the master. That mat is symbolic. Whenever a disciple rolls up the mat again, others know he has received the benediction. Now this is the final goodbye. […]

Osho, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Ch 6