奧修演講文章

BELOVED OSHO,
LATELY YOU HAVE BEEN SHOWERING SUCH UNBEARABLE AND OVERWHELMING FRIENDLINESS ON US, THAT IT DRIVES ME TOTALLY BANANAS.
I GET AN UNCONTAINABLE URGE TO STAND UP AND CUDDLE YOU.
HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO BE BOTH SUCH A FRIEND AND SUCH A MASTER TO US? ISN'T A MASTER SUPPOSED TO STAND ALOOF AND COOL, LIKE A BUDDHA?
WHY DOES ALL THIS INTIMACY, EVEN SO DELIGHTFUL, SCARE ME SO MUCH?
WILL I FORGET THE MOON, BITE YOUR FINGER, AND TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED ONCE MORE?

This is from the private secretary of Niskriya, Sarjano.
Sarjano, nobody can drive you bananas, you are a born banana. And you are saying, "I get an uncontainable urge to stand up and cuddle You."
Whenever such an urge arises, just stand up and cuddle Niskriya. He pays you!
You are asking me, "How do you manage to be both such a friend and such a master to us?" A master is not a master if he is not a friend too. But vice versa is not true. A disciple is a disciple and cannot claim friendship to the master, for a simple reason: because the disciple has to rise to the heights -- only then he can cuddle the master.
I have given you a substitute. He is not a master, he is a simple human being and he would love being cuddled.
A master is always a friend, but his friendship has a totally different fragrance. It is less friendship and more friendliness. Its intrinsic part is compassion. He loves you because he cannot do anything else. He wants to share his experience because he can see you are searching for it, you are thirsty for it. He makes his springs of purest water available to you. He enjoys and feels grateful if you receive his gifts of love, of friendliness, of truth.
But rarely have you come across such a master, because the old style was for the master to be very serious and to keep a distance. To allow intimacy, to allow friendliness... he was afraid that his truth and his finding might be lost in the crowd.
I am a beginning and an end: the beginning of a new kind of master and an end of the old style of masters. Certainly I am not like Gautam Buddha; I have left him twenty-five centuries back. If I am just like Gautam Buddha, that means consciousness has not evolved higher than where Gautam Buddha left it.
I say unto you, consciousness has grown higher, reached bigger peaks, deeper depths than Gautam Buddha.
Gautam Buddha is a prototype of all the old masters. The disciple has to be kept far away. He has to learn discipline, respect, obedience. In a certain way it was a spiritual slavery.
I don't want you to be my slaves and I don't want you to obey me. I want simply that you should understand me, and if my experience is authentic and your intelligence is able to understand it, you will follow it on your own accord.
It is not obedience. I am not telling you to do something, I am telling you to simply understand and then follow your understanding wherever it leads. I am happy whatever you become; just remain truthful and sincere to your own being.
The old master asked, "Be sincere towards me, be authentic towards me, be obedient towards me." I simply cannot do such harm to you, particularly to those whom I love.
I want you to be sincere to your own truth.
Yes, I can show you the path, how to find yourself. But I cannot order you; this is not an army. But the old world of masters and disciples was almost just like an army: everything had to be according to the rule the master had given. And centuries have passed and the rule remains and people go on following it without any understanding. They cannot even answer why they are doing it -- just because it is written in the scriptures, because great masters have said it.
But times change; circumstances change. Moreover, no two individuals are the same; hence no rule can be applicable to all the individuals, century after century. In fact no rule can be applicable to you all even in this moment, there is no question of centuries. Even in this moment you are all separate individuals like beautiful pillars of a temple -- supporting the same roof, but the pillars have a distance; they have their own unique individuality.
You are all here to seek and search the truth of your being -- that is the roof of the temple. And you are all like the pillars -- but every pillar has to be himself. It may support the same roof, but it is not going to be a replica of another pillar. He has to be his own, original self.
I am saying this to you so you remember that I don't belong to the old category of masters, and there is no category to which I can belong. Neither do I want any of you to be imitative. Life is not a dance when you are just an imitation. It is a dance when you are yourself.
I am not like anybody -- Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu. I love these people; I love them because they were unique -- but I am myself and I love my uniqueness just as I love their uniqueness.
Your question is significant when you ask, "Why does all this intimacy, even so delightful, scare me so much?"
It is very simple, Sarjano. Love is the most dangerous thing in the world, because love dissolves you just like a dewdrop disappearing in the ocean. It does not kill you, but it certainly makes you so big, so huge that you cannot think in the old terms as when you were just a dewdrop, sitting on the lotus leaf.
The lotus leaf... just a little breeze and the dewdrop starts slipping towards the ocean. You can understand the fear of the dewdrop. The dewdrop can see the ocean and knows perfectly well that within a minute it will be gone.
Intimacy and love are the most dangerous things, because they dissolve your personality, your ego, your I-ness. They give you authentic reality, but they take away all that is false and not intrinsic to your existence.
It is a kind of death. Every great love is a death and a resurrection.
You are saying, "Will I forget the moon, bite your finger and take you for granted once more?"
Sarjano, if you have seen me, if you have loved me you cannot forget the moon. And as far as biting the finger, Niskriya is available -- for all the cannibals who are here, bite Niskriya. I really mean it!
And Sarjano, you can never take me for granted. It is impossible for love, it is impossible for trust -- and I know your heart and I know you have loved me. It is because of that love that such a question has arisen in you.

Now, Sarjano, it is time for prayer.
In fact it is always time for prayer. Even when we are talking seriously, and everybody is listening very seriously, it is time for prayer.
Deep down a laughter is gathering like a raincloud; soon it will be showering. And the time has come.

Gorgeous Gloria, after an examination, phones her doctor and asks, "Doctor, would you see if by any chance I left my panties in your office?"
The doctor looks in the examination room, returns to the phone and tells her, "I'm afraid they are not here."
"Sorry to trouble you, Doctor," replies Gloria, "I will try the dentist."

Three guys are sitting in the pub one evening, talking about their dogs.
The first guy, a car salesman, says,
"My dog is incredible, I have trained him as my assistant. Watch this!"
He whistles, and his dog jumps up and races out of the door. Five minutes later, he is back. In his mouth are all the papers, signed and sealed, of a brand new Cadillac car he has just sold. The salesman pulls out a box of biscuits and gives one to his dog.
"That's nothing," says the next guy, a doctor. Just then, there is a screech of brakes and a crash of metal outside the pub. The doctor whistles and his dog jumps up and races out of the door.
Within five minutes the dog has bandaged up all the casualties, called an ambulance and comes running back into the pub. So the doctor gives his dog a biscuit.
"That's nothing," says the third guy, a lawyer. He gives a whistle and his dog jumps up, eats all the biscuits, screws the other two dogs and then goes out to lunch.

Kowalski goes into the ice cream parlor and orders a chocolate ice cream.
"I'm sorry, sir," says the clerk, "but we are out of chocolate."
"Oh," says Kowalski, "in that case I will take some chocolate."
"No, no, sir," says the clerk, "you don't understand. We have run out of chocolate."
"Oh," says Kowalski, "then, just give me some chocolate."
The clerk looks hard at Kowalski and says,
"Okay! Spell, `van', as in vanilla."
Kowalski spells "V-A-N."
"All right," says the clerk, "now spell `straw', as in strawberry."
Kowalski spells straw.
"Good!" says the clerk, "now, spell `fuck' as in chocolate."
Kowalski looks puzzled and says, "But there is no fuck in chocolate."
"Aha!" shouts the clerk, "that's what I have been trying to tell you!"

Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.